Pokemon: To Kalos and Beyond
by The Treecko Man
Summary: Travel with Ash as he makes his way through the Kalos region with old friends and new ones, along with old pokemon coming back. Conflicting love interests, aura powers resurfacing, organizations bent on taking over the world, and for some reason Ash finds himself in the middle of it.
1. Chapter 1: Coming Home

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon but I REALLY wish I could, because yeah. It that would be awesome. I do not own any of the characters, I do however, own my own version of this Pokemon fanfiction. It is mine and it is my squishy. I hope you enjoy it, it's my first fan-fiction I've ever written. Tell me what I did well on and what could be fixed, and yeah. Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy the fic!

*_Story starts a little bit after Ash losses at the Unova league and Dawn has decided to stick around after the whole meloetta incident as well. Instead of the gang going on the season long boat tour to Kanto (which honestly sucked), they decide to fly there instead. This fic includes romance between characters (yet to be decided with who), realistically aged characters (around 16 or so), old pokemon returning for the new adventure, actual pokemon progression, Ash will be an aura user, Ash will be aware that girls actually exist, and so much more. There will be heavy references to canon but I will insert a lot of my own ideas as well. I have no clue what to leave the rating on this because I have to work on this on my school loaned laptop because my personal laptop's screen broke (I dropped it…{bloody idiot…}) soooo yeah anyways... ON TO THE FIC!*_

"C'mon Ash, we're going to miss the plane if you don't start hauling!" yelled Ash's long time friend Iris as they were all sprinting down the road. "I want to get to Kanto as soon as possible so I swear if we miss the plane because of you, you're dead!"

"Hey, what did I even do to get us into this!" The 16 year old Ash Ketchum yelled ahead. Iris slowed her pace to get next to Ash and began a rampage of insults.

"What did you do?! You were supposed to wake us all up early! You had one job Ketchum and you unsurprisingly managed to fail at it! Now we're 2 hours behind schedule and there's a pretty good chance we'll miss the plane!"

Ash took all this in and with grin on his face he replied, "Well in hindsight it was a bad idea giving me that job!" He yelled laughing as he started running as fast as he could to avoid the already furious Iris.

"Ketchum you get back here!" She yelled speeding past a panting Cilan and Dawn.

"Iris, just please don't murder him!" Cilan said calling out to her.

"No promises!" She yelled back as she quickly faded out of view, still chasing Ash.

"Better have the bandages ready Cilan" Laughed the bluenette running next to him.

"It wouldn't be a bad idea Dawn." He replied in between his panting.

"Pip piplup!" agreed the little blue penguin on top of her head.

As Cilan and Dawn neared the top of the hill where they had last seen their two friends, they heard the sounds of laughing and screaming. When they got to the top, they weren't surprised to see that Iris had tackled Ash to the ground. Pikachu was just rolling around and laughing at his trainer and Iris was sitting on Ash's back with one of his arms bent behind him, demanding that he call uncle.

"Alright Iris I think he's had enough." said Dawn who was somewhat out of breath.

"I'll say when he's had enough! And we're just getting started here. Now say uncle!" Iris yelled.

"Gaah uncle! Uncle!" Ash cried out.

"Iris if you keep this up much longer, we'll miss our flight." Cilan chimed in. Iris eased her grip taking a moment to think about her situation and decided that Cilan was right.

"You're lucky we're on a tight schedule Ketchum." She said letting go of the boys arm and getting off his back.

"Geez, thanks Cilan. Any longer and I think she would've torn my arm off." Ash said greatful of the connoisseur's actions. He got up off the ground getting a narrow eyed glance from Iris and began to talk to Cilan.

"So how much time do we have before the plane to Kanto takes off."

"Well it leaves at 2:00 p.m. and it's about 1:00 right now so, in an hour." Cilan replied.

"How much further until we reach the airport?" Dawn asked.

"Well, according to the map its less than two miles away. So if we keep running, we could still make it."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Iris yelled "Let's go!"

"Right." replied the rest of the group. They continued running down the path and after a few minutes, the treeline started to thin and the airport slowly began to appear.

"There it is!" Dawn said with excitement in her voice.

"Yes we're going to make it!" Ash yelled out.

"And you get to keep your head on!" Iris said with sarcasm very much present.

About 15 minutes later the group ran through the doors of airport and scrambled to get to their terminal. After Cilan had spotted it they ran towards the ticket lady as fast as they could.

"Is the flight to Kanto still boarding passengers?!" Cilan blurted out.

The ticket woman looked at him with a slight frown "Oh I'm sorry sir. The plane headed to Kanto hasn't even arrived back from the Hoenn region yet. Bad weather held the flight back so it won't be here for a few more hours. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

Everybody sweatdropped, slowly collapsed on the floor and started groaning from the exhaustion.

"Well, at least we're early." Ash said and everybody groaned even louder.

* * *

After a much needed rest at the airport, they had boarded the plane and were about ready to take off. The plane was divided so that there were two seats on the left side of an aisle, and two seats on the right side. Cilan and Iris sat on the left with Iris taking the window seat and Cilan on the isle. Ash and Dawn were on the right side with Dawn next to the window and Ash on the isle. With them seated they had to give their pokemon to the stewardess to be put in the storage compartment. Even Pikachu and Piplup had to be returned had to get into their pokeballs. Pikachu had put up a huge fuss about it even going so far as to slap Ash with an iron tail attack. He eventually gave in and was called back to his pokeball, but not before he could give Ash a glare that seemed to say "You owe me BIG". It was probably the first time since he had even gotten to the Unova region that he had even been in it.

"Thanks again for letting me have the window seat Ash." Dawn said.

"Yeah no sweat Dawn." Ash replied.

There was a beeping sound and the pilot began speaking through the intercom. "Alright everybody, this is your captain speaking. Sorry for the wait, but a storm came out of nowhere back in Hoenn and had the whole airport closed for several hours. There will be a complimentary dinner provided by the airports 5 star restaurant for your troubles."

"Ah yes! Free food!" Ash yelled out getting glances from many of the other passengers on the plane.

"Ok so here is our flight schedule. We will depart from the airport within the next 20 minutes. The estimated time to reach the Kanto region is about 15 hours so sit back and relax. The current temperature at the Cerulean City Interregional airport is 82* fahrenheit and there are mild headwinds along the way so please expect some mild turbulence. Please pay attention to the stewardesses as they demonstrate the proper safety procedures for this aircraft. Thank you for choosing NorthPoke Airlines. Buckle up and we hope you enjoy your flight." Said the captain concluding his monologue.

After the long and boring lecture about the safety procedures, the plane began to move down the strip towards the runway. Ash looked over at Cilan and Iris and saw that both of them looked quite nervous.

"Hey Cilan and Iris, is this your first time flying?" Ash asked with some concern as they both turned and shyly nodded towards him.

"Oh I remember the first time I flew. It's scary at first but it's a really cool experience. You'll love it I promise." He added trying to reassure them.

Dawn leaned over Ash trying to add to what he said. "Hey no need to worry you two, everything will be ok."

The plane began to move onto the runway where it was about to take off. It got into position and with the confirmation of the control tower, the plane began to speed up. In a matter of seconds the plane was moving faster than a bullet. Ash looked over Dawn and out the window to see that they were whizzing past the airport. There was a massive bump and the next thing then knew, they had taken off.

Ash sat back in his seat and reminisced about what had happened to him in the past few weeks. It all really started after he had arrived with Iris and Cilan at Cynthia's summer home. Dawn had been waiting inside and surprised all of them with her guest appearance. He hadn't seen her in about a year and a half so the reunion was warmly welcomed. After that there was the junior cup tournament which Dawn won. Then there was the Meloetta incident. There was his and Dawn's supposed goodbye battle. He had beaten Dawn and man that moment sure did bring back a lot of feeling and memories. Afterwards was when Dawn said she was going to leave, but Dawn ended up changing her mind. She said she wanted to travel some more with Ash and the others and to see him compete in the Unova League tournament. The tournament that Ash unfortunately didn't win. He had only made it to the quarterfinals which really hurt his confidence. Dawn had been hanging around with him after his crushing defeat trying to make him feel a bit better. They had talked for hours on end that day and he felt a new feeling for her that he had never felt before, but he couldn't describe them. So long story short, a lot of stuff happened and Ash was glad his old friend was back.

"So how does it feel to be headed home after being gone for so long?" a tired sounding Dawn asked him.

Ash was surprised by the sudden question and he quickly snapped back into reality. He looked out the window and saw that the sun had almost set. "Geez why does time always pass so fast when I think?" Ash thought to himself while looking for an answer to Dawn's question.

"Oh well, it'll be great to go home. I'll get to see all my pokemon back at the professor's ranch. Oh and I'll see my mom again. Hard to believe that it's been about a year and a half since I've seen my mom in the flesh." he said with excitement. "Oh yeah, this'll be your first time in the Kanto region too won't it?"

"Yeah it will be. It'll be nice to see the region where you grew up at. From what you've told me over the years it's a really nice place." Dawn replied with an even more drowsy feeling.

Ash noticed how tired Dawn looked and that made him think for a sec. "Hey do you know what time it is Dawn?" He asked.

"Oh yeah," Dawn said looking at her poketch "it's like 10:30. I think I'm going to try sleeping in a sec, I'm just finishing up some more ideas for my next contest."

"You have a pillow or something you can use?" Ash asked.

"Nah I don't think I need anything. I actually find these seats very comfortable, so I'll just sleep like this." Dawn replied putting the notepad she was writing her ideas on in her backpack. She squirmed around for a few moments and finally found a position where she felt comfortable. "G'nite Ash" she said to him in a very soothing voice "Talk to ya in the morning." And with that, she laid back into the seat, closed her eyes and instantly fell asleep.

Ash looked to his left to see Cilan who was reading a book about the basics of cooking. Iris, like Dawn and almost everybody else on the plane was asleep. Ash didn't feel much like sleeping so he thought he'd make small talk with Cilan.

"Hey Cilan?" Ash said getting his attention.

"Yes Ash?" Cilan replied.

"You're a five star chef right?" Ash asked.

"That's correct, why do you ask? Are you hungry again?" he stated with a chuckle.

"Haha very funny." Ash said smiling "What I mean is, if you're a five star chef then why are you reading that book about the basics of cooking?"

"Oh, well I'm going through and correcting it." He said chuckling again and showing pages that were almost all highlighted and written over in red pen.

"Cilan, you never cease to amaze me." Ash said chuckling too.

Just as Ash said that, he felt something fall onto his shoulder. He looked out of the corner of his eyes and saw that Dawn had fallen onto him. He looked back to Cilan who had a small grin forming on his face.

"Well looks like she wanted that pillow after all." Ash said mumbling.

"Well Ash, you know this could be an opportunity for you." Cilan said still chuckling at the scene.

"Opportunity? What do you mean Cilan?" Ash asked slightly confused.

"Ahh clueless as ever I see." Cilan replied. "Just like our little stumble with those Cottonee."

"Oh. You mean that kind of opportunity." Ash said realizing what he meant. Ash had to admit he was pretty dense when it came to the complicated world of dating. "Look I know that both you and Iris say that Dawn and I are like soulmates, but to be honest we're really close friends and if I brought dating into that, well I could potentially lose that friendship. I don't want that to happen Cilan." Ash said with concern in his voice.

"Well whether or not you take advantage of this opportunity that Arceus has given you is none of my business." Cilan stated.

"I saved Arceus you know." Ash said trying to change subjects.

"I'm just saying Ash." Cilan said putting his book away and taking a small travel pillow out of his backpack. "I think I'm going to try and sleep so have a good night Ash."

"Okay, well g'nite Cilan." Ash replied back.

Cilan put the pillow on his right shoulder, laid his head down on it, looked at Ash giving him a wink and with that he fell asleep. Ash looked over to the blue haired girl that was still sound asleep on his shoulder. He noted that she was lightly snoring and that every now and then she would say something in her sleep. He had probably been thinking about her for a solid hour before he began to feel exhausted himself. He thought about what to do with his situation and after a few minutes of thinking, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

* * *

Dawn's View

Dawn's eyes slowly cracked open with light quickly flooding into her eyes as she gently woke up from her sleep. She quickly noticed that her head wasn't on her chair and was surprised to see that she was sleeping on Ash's shoulder. She slightly leaned up to see that Cilan and Iris were still asleep too. She laid her head back in Ash's neck, enjoying the way it felt. It saddened her when she thought about this would probably never happen again, because she really liked Ash. After seeing him perform many heroic acts like saving her life on multiple occasions, defeating criminal organizations on multiple occasions, and even saving the world...on multiple occasions. Not to mention that he was basically a legendary pokemon magnet (whether that was a good thing or not), had the determination to do literally anything he put his mind to, and the icing on the cake is that he was somehow able to use his aura and manifest it into physical energy, even going so far as to perform little shows for her and Brock back in the day. He was literally the greatest guy she had ever met. The only thing that was stopping her from asking him out was how bloody dense he was. She had dropped him hints multiple times but whether he noticed them or not was beyond her knowledge. And that brought her back to her current situation and it made her think.

"Should I stay like this, because it's so much comfier than the plane chairs. Trying to sleep on them is like trying to fall asleep on a Sandslash. But what if Ash woke up and saw me like this. How would he react to me doing this? Ugg it's so hard deciding what to do." She said thinking to herself.

And somehow, what Dawn feared most at that moment became reality. Ash started squirming. Dawn closed her eyes pretending to be asleep, hoping for the best. She just proyed this wouldn't turn out badly. But she was surprised when he didn't do anything. She could feel him moving around. He was obviously awake, she could hear him mumbling to himself. Then he finally started talking out loud.

"Heh, well I guess you were so comfy you didn't even move an inch." He said to her chuckling. "Man if only you knew how Cilan reacted to this last night, you woulda been laughing at me so hard."

"I was like this all night?!" Dawn thought to herself. "And he let me sleep like this, all cradled up in his neck. What a sweet guy." She had to get out of this somehow. "Maybe I should fake wake up and start a normal conversation with him." she thought. "Yeah let's do that. Okay, well here goes nothing."

* * *

Ash's View

Ash noticed that Dawn was starting to stir around and he figured that she too was about to wake up. With his guess correct, he watched as Dawn sat up looked around half dazed, then she gazed back at him.

"Oh, good morning Ash." Dawn said with a drowsy yawn and started to stretch her arms out.

"Morning Dawn. You sleep well last night?" He asked.

"Oh uhm yeah I did thanks." she replied trying to hold back the blush forming on her face.

"Well that's good. It looks like we'll be landing in a little bit. I'm so excited to get home you know, I haven't seen my hometown in so long. I wonder if Gary will be there. Or if Misty and Brock will be around. It'd definitely be great to see them again!

"Well somebody certainly is excited for just getting up." Dawn giggled.

"How did you know I just woke up?" Ash asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well...you see umm...I could hear it in your voice! You just sounded really drowsy and all so I just like umm...put the pieces together heheheh" replied Dawn in a hastened tone.

"Dawn relax, you're not on trial."Ash said with a chuckle while Dawn sweatdropped.

* * *

"Oh man after 15 hours of sitting in that chair it's nice to just stretch my legs." Iris said. She exercised that thought by performing a few cartwheels through the jetway bridge and into the Cerulean City Airport.

"I can tell she really isn't one for sitting is she?" Dawn asked sweat dropping as the rest of the gang walked out of the plane.

"Her energetic personality is just one of the many bold spices that makes up the powerful spirit that is Iris." Cilan replied to her with a smile.

Just as Cilan finished his sentence, they walked out of the jetway bridge and into the Airport. Iris was standing happily next to a tall woman with brown hair and a pink coat on. Ash saw the woman and his eyes lit up like the lights of a christmas tree.

"Mom!" Ash yelled dropping everything as he ran in for a hug.

"Ash, oh my baby it's been too long!" Ash's mom Delia answered as she embraced her son.

After about a minute of hugs, Ash and his mother finally broke apart, and began the long awaited conversation of his journeys around the Unova region.

"So mom, you remember Dawn right" Ash asked.

"Yes I do and my my Dawn, you've grown up so much since the last time I saw you. Why you've practically become a woman now!" Delia replied.

"Thanks Mrs. Ketchum, It's really nice to meet you again." Dawn said.

Delia looked up from the bluenette and turned towards the other two people that came off the plane. "So you must be Cilan and Iris yes? It's great to finally get to meet you two in person." She stated. Both Cilan and Iris responded with hellos and handshakes.

"Hey, I hate to break up formal greetings but we should probably go pick up our pokemon. Pikachu is probably freaking out from being in his pokeball for so long." Ash stated.

Everyone else nodded and they walked around looking for the receptionist that returned everyone's pokemon. Once they found the pickup area Ash, Cilan, Iris, and Dawn stood in line for what seemed like an eternity. Finally once they had been called up, they presented their trainer I.D.s and received a tray that contained their pokemon. Ash immediately picked up Pikachu's pokeball and released him. Pikachu came out in a flash of white light and instantly began to roll around and kiss the ground as if he'd never even been on it before. Dawn did the same with piplup but when he reappeared from his pokeball, he was fast asleep.

"Alright guys, let's go and meet up with my mom and head to my place so we can figure out what our next step is." Ash said.

Everyone agreed and with pikachu deciding to run on his own (for obvious reasons). They walked out of the airport and to the parking lot where Ash's mom was waiting patiently in her maroon colored mini van. Once everybody had piled in, they drove out of the airport and started the hour long drive back to Ash's nice little home in the comfy town of Pallet. All the way home, Ash could hear the oohs and aahs of Iris, Cilan, and Dawn as they watched many of Kanto's native pokemon frolic in their natural habitats. There were herds of Tauros and flocks of Pidgey and Spearow spattered about the fields surrounding the road. The sight that got the biggest reaction though, was when Iris saw a trainer riding on the back of a Dragonite in the distance.

While everyone was admiring the sights of his home region, Ash couldn't help but reminisce about the first time he had ever traveled through the forest. It was just him and Pikachu on their way to battle at their first gym, Pewter City gym. It was there, after they had beaten Brock, that he and Pikachu truly started to bond with each other. Ash looked down on his lap where Pikachu, who was curled up in a ball, and was sound asleep.

"Good times weren't they buddy." Ash said as he scratched the yellow mouse.

Pikachu's eyes fluttered open and looked up at his trainer who was still scratching him. Pikachu let out a small coo and returned to its sleep. Its bliss didn't last much longer though as the car turned onto a bumpy gravel road. Ash looked up from his annoyed partner and he realised that before him was his home town. The town of Pallet.

"Well that certainly was faster than usual." Delia stated. "Well guys it looks like we're here!"

"Ash your hometown is so cute!" Dawn exclaimed as she looked out the window.

"Yeah, it's a cozy little place isn't it." Ash replied with a smile, happy to be home again.

"Geez, this place is smaller than the Village of Dragons. Are you sure this is a town Ash?" laughed Iris getting an annoyed glare from him.

"I actually have to agree with Iris on this one. Your town has a population of 1,500 people, where are all the homes and businesses at?" Cilan asked.

"Well most of the homes are spread out over ten square miles of land. The people are here, its just a very spread out community." Delia replied. Just as the car was about to enter the town, Delia turned left on a fork in the road and started to head up a steep hill.

"Wait, where are we going mom?" Ash asked with a confused look.

"Well you've been away for about a year and a half now, and I thought that you missed your pokemon at Professor Oak's ranch more than you missed your room." His mom replied to him with a smile.

"Really! We're going to see them now!?" Ash shouted out, making his friends jump in surprise.

"Sweetie we're already there." Delia said as a large building and windmill came into sight.

And there it was. Professor Oak's famous pokemon ranch. Ash could barely hold his excitement as it was literally boiling out of him. He couldn't wait to see all of his old pokemon. Man were they going to be happy to see him, especially Bayleaf. She always showed more affection for him than any of his other pokemon had ever before. But thinking of that made Ash feel a bit down. He had never really taken any of his pokemon with him when he went to new regions aside from pikachu. They were all sent back here to the ranch to do nothing really.

With that thought finished up, the minivan pulled up to the front door of the ranch. Everybody exited the car except for Ash's mom, who said she had to finish making the feast that she had prepared for him and his friends. As she drove off, Ash and the others walked towards the entrance of the complex. Ash seemed a bit nervous because it had been more than a year and a half since he had seen any of his pokemon in person. He always felt this way when he came back from a journey. A sense of fear that his pokemon would hate him for leaving them all in a lab while he was out having adventures and boundless fun. Even though all of his pokemon loved it when he visited, part of him felt like they hated him for it.

The gang walked through the doors of the complex to get a well recepted blast of cold air. Everybody was looking around and gaping at all of the high tech gadgets and monitors that seemed to litter the room. Ash smiled as the memories came flooding back to him. This was where he had started his journey. It was because of this place that he was where he was to this day, and that only made him more excited.

"Professor Oak?!" He yelled out "Tracy, where are you guys at!?"

"Way to be subtle Ash." Iris teased out.

There was a small buzz that could be heard. Everyone was looking around trying to see what it was and where it was coming from. The lights above started to flicker and suddenly a small, orangish cone with a distinctive lightning bolt tracing on its side appeared, and it darted around the room, making an odd laughing sound. Everyone in the group but Dawn realised what was going on and finally, the entity decided to introduce itself.

"Hey Rotom, hows it going?" Ash asked to professor Oak's little electric devil.

"Wait, it's a Rotom?!" Dawn squealed and she quickly grabbed at her hair trying to keep it straight. "No no no no no no no! It's gunna mess up my hair!"

Rotom gave a quick laugh and zoomed by Dawn's head making her hair stand on ends. Dawn let out a small scream and sweatdropped when she discovered, and to her horror, she officially had an afro. Everyone let out a big laugh as Dawn struggled to straighten her hair and rotom snuck back into the electrical system.

"IT'S NOT FUNNY YOU GUYS!" Dawn yelled at them still struggling to fix her hair.

"I'll take a guess that all this screaming I hear is Rotom's doing?" said a smooth voice behind them. Everyone jumped around to see professor Oak and rotom at his side.

"Professor Oak!" Ash yelled out in excitement.

"Ahh Ash, great to see you again. Your mother told me you were returning home soon. Glad to see you made it here safe and sound. And I see that you brought friends along too." professor Oak stated with a great smile on his face. But joyous face quickly turned to confusion. "Umm Ash, who is that young lady there with the afro?"

Dawn's face turned bright red in embarrassment "Oh it's me professor, Dawn Berlitz. Ash's friend from the Sinnoh region heh heh…" She retorted.

The professor let out a chuckle "Ahh yes I remember you now. You're the girl who so dearly loves my poetry, aren't you? Well I certainly do like what you did with your hair." he replied with a chuckle and Dawn sighed giving piplup an order to just hit her with a bubblebeam and get it over with.

"Well professor this is Cilan and Iris, you remember them right?" Ash asked.

"But of course my boy, it's great to see the both of you once again." Oak said to the two who gave warm smiles as a return.

"Hey professor, I was just wondering, where's tracy at?" Ash asked.

"Oh he's out right now, I believe that he's currently on a date with Misty." Oak stated.

"Wait, they're dating?!" Ash exclaimed, shocked by the news he was receiving.

"Oh you haven't heard? Tracy and Misty got together about a year or so back. To be honest I just assumed that they had told you." He replied.

Ash felt like a ton of bricks hit him in the chest. "Misty dating Tracy. Wow…" He said in a whisper.

Dawn, felt her heart drop and her mind was racing. "Is Ash in love with Misty?! But, but I...I"

"Whoo!" Ash screamed out with chaotic enthusiasm. "Oh geez that's a load off my chest. I thought that she had a crush on me, oh **thank** Arceus."

"I thought you said that you and Misty had a bond like no other." Cilan said questioning what was going on.

"We do, but it's the best friends kind of bond. To be honest she's like a kind hearted psychopath haha. Kind of like you Iris, but with more punching." Ash replied getting an irritated look from her.

Dawn felt her racing heart settle down and her breathing come return to normal. She was still in the clear. To be honest that was one of the big things that had been holding her back from asking him out, not knowing if he had had a crush on one of his previous travel companions.

"That aside, would you care to go see your pokemon ash?" Oak asked the excited boy.

"Oh yeah, of course! C'mon guys lets go already!" Ash yelled out as he started running towards the doors that lead to the ranch out back.

Ash burst through the doors, ready yet nervous to meet his pokemon once again. But as he took his first step into the vast plains, he barely had a second to think before he saw bayleaf charging at him at full force. She crashed into him, taking him to the ground and with a vicious force, began to lick and nuzzle Ash.

"Gahh, hey Bayleaf I missed you to! Woah c'mon let me up hahaha!" Ash managed to get through all of the licking and hugging.

All the others watched the scene unfold and were laughing at the large amount of affection Ash was getting from just Bayleaf alone.

"Well, I think it's clear to see that Bayleaf and Ash have an unbreakable bond" Cilan spoke out still laughing at the scene.

"That's the understatement of the year." Iris retorted rather sarcastically.

"Hey guys" Ash tried to get out from the hug rampage his pokemon was on. "Could you give me and the professor; no stop bayleaf that tickles! hahahaha! Could you give us a moment to talk?! hahaha stop it Bayleaf!"

"Sure thing Ash. C'mon guys let's go relax with our pokemon over in the shade." Dawn chimed as she, Cilan and Iris, Pikachu and Piplup walked off.

As Ash finally got up from the assault of love, Bayleaf ran off to inform the others of his arrival. Ash began to scan the horizon to find the rest of his pokemon. There were many pokemon that were scampering about that must have belonged to other trainers. But he could see a few of his own. His horde of Tauros grazing in the distance and his Torterra was sunbathing nearby. His Muk was seemed to be enjoying a large pit of mud that was being made by his Totodile and Corphish. Buizel and Gibble were sparring in what looked like an epic match because it had drawn a big crowd by many of the other pokemon. He could even see Torkoal, Heracross, and Donphan enjoying it. But all in all that was all he could see right off the bat. He noticed the large forest that was off in the distance and assumed that the rest were somewhere in there.

"So professor, how have they all been doing?" Ash asked.

"Well, most of them are quite happy here. They all get along swimmingly and I think that some even love it as a home. Your Staraptor and Swellow even started families with some of the other bird pokemon here." Oak stated.

Ash smiled at the thought of his pokemon having families. It made him feel as though his pokemon truly were happy here. But there was something in Oak's statement that caught Ash's ears.

"Did you say most of them were happy here professor?" Ash asked with a little worry. "Are any of them unhappy here?"

"Well, let me rephrase what I said. They're all happy here, it's just that a couple of them have grown tedious of the thought of being here another day." Oak replied. "It's your Buizel and Sceptile. They've both been here for quite a long time now and I believe that they both want to travel with you once again."

"I can't just leave them here then professor." Ash stated feeling bad for his pokemon. "I want them to be happy and do what they want to do."

"You've turned into quite the caring man Ash." Oak replied trying to cheer up the clearly down teen.

"But...I want to start my journey again" Ash said feeling very torn. "I can't really do that if I already have 3 out of my 6 pokemon. I just don't know what to do professor…"

"There is something I might be able to do for you to help ease up the tension on your situation." Stated the professor. "You know of the law in place that allows anyone who wins a pokemon league tournament gets to carry 10 pokemon on them, correct?"

"Of course, it's like common knowledge." Ash replied. "How can that help me though, I've never won a league before."

"Yes, yes I know. But I feel that because you have participated and done so well in a large number of league tournaments, that I might be able to pull a few strings for you." Oak stated getting a very hyper reaction from Ash.

"You could do that for me?!" Ash said nearly screaming.

"Now calm down, I did say might. There have been a few cases of where there have been exceptions for this. Take Cynthia, the Sinnoh league champion for example. Throughout her journey she competed in 13 league tournaments before she finally won one. But on her tenth attempt she was given the ability to carry 10 pokemon due to her drive and successes in the past leagues. I think that with your successes in the leagues, along with the large contribution of saving the world a few times, I think that they would allow it."

Ash felt so excited that he felt like he was about to burst. The thought of being able to carry 10 pokemon at once was something he had always dreamed of. It would certainly solve his current situation and would be something that he could use to gain a better edge with training and all other things battle related.

"When do you think that this could be arranged?" Ash asked to the professor, with a very light headed feeling.

"Well, if the league sees you fit to have access to this privilege, it could be as early as tomorrow." The professor replied.

Ash felt like he was about to faint. There was so many things happening all at once that he couldn't even concentrate on his own thoughts. Drool was leaking from his gaping mouth, his eyes looked glazed and his back began to arch back to worrying levels. It was to the point where someone could easily mistake his reaction to him having a stroke.

"Ahem. Ash, you might want to come back to reality, you have a few visitors." The professor chuckled knowing how thrilled the boy must be.

Ash snapped out of his dazed state and ended up collapsing back first onto the ground. He looked up to see the faces of all the pokemon that he had traveled with on his journeys. If Bayleaf's love assault was bad then what happened next was immeasurable because the last thing Ash saw was all of his pokemon starting a dogpile.

* * *

Later that night.

It was almost 8:00 PM. The gang was all back at Ash's house and the feast was nearly prepared. Ash was in his room, changing into another set of clothes due to how dirty his other set had gotten. As Ash was changing, he thought about everything that had happened at the ranch.

_After much catching up and ruff housing, many pokemon were basically begging him to use them in a battle against someone else. Donphan wanted to battle Glalie, Torterra wanted to battle Snorlax, Muk wanted to battle Torkoal, and Buizel even wanted to battle Pikachu. The list though, went on and on. Ash was surprised after many hours of battles that Sceptile hadn't even participated in one yet. But Ash quickly found out that Sceptile had wanted to show his skills solo. He watched as Sceptile challenged and fought Infernape, and to say that Ash was impressed would have been an understatement. Infernape really had given it his all, even at one point having its blaze ability activated. But Sceptile seemed to have taken him down with ease. After that match, he had been introduced to Swellow's kids and Staraptor's, as well as their partners, which seemed like a very nice way to wrap up his reunion with his pokemon. Dawn had even given the idea of them all leaving their pokemon there for the night, which everyone thought was a great one. _

Ash smiled about what a great day it had been as he pulled up a new pair of cargo pants. He was really hoping that the professor would pull through for him and he would be able to carry 10 pokemon. Being able to bring back some of his old partners would be amazing and the thought of having Sceptile and Buizel back made him jitter with excitement. But that also brought up the thought "What would happen if the professor couldn't get permission for me. What should I do about Sceptile and Buizel. I can't just have them stay at the ranch and stay unhappy, it's not right to do that to them." Ash tried to think of any solutions to his problem, but aside from releasing them back into the wild, he couldn't think of anything. Casting those thoughts aside, his put on a shirt, just as there was a knock at his door.

"Hey Ash?" Dawn asked from the other side of his door. "May I come in?"

"Just a sec Dawn!" Ash replied to her as he quickly looked at the mirror on his dresser, making sure he didn't look like a slob. "Ok yeah you can come in now."

Dawn opened the door and walked into the teen's room and it looked completely different than she thought it would have. On the walls there were posters for kids shows, pictures of pokemon, stuffed pokemon on his twin sized bed, and even toys on shelves.

"Wow. Your room is…uhmm..." Dawn started to say

"Yeah I haven't really gotten around to redecorating heh heh." Ash said chuckling at the sights of all of his old kid stuff.

"I guess you could say that." Dawn said as her eyes wandered to the top of a dresser that had awards spewing off of it. "Wow, when you told me you'd won a lot of competitions, you really weren't kidding."

There were dozens of badges in small display cases along with trophies, ribbons, medals, and even pictures of his old travel companions. Dawn saw pictures of Ash in group photos with her, Misty, Brock, Tracy, May, Max, Cilan, Iris, and a lot of others who she didn't recognize. Some were with old rivals, gym leaders, and even a couple of the champions of the regions. But there was one photo that caught her eye. It was an old and well worn photo of Ash when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old. He was wearing a straw hat with a pink ribbon and had a huge smile on his face. But that wasn't what had caught her eye. Standing next to the younger version of Ash stood another girl around 5 or 6 too. She had long blonde hair, was wearing a pink blouse and looked like she was laughing while trying to grab the hat back.

"Hey Ash?" Dawn ask out to him "What's this picture of?"

"Oh that picture? Wow that takes me way back. What was I like 6 years old then?" He asked to himself. "Anyways, when I was really young, I would go to professor Oak's summer camp. I went there like every summer until I was like 8 I think."

"Oh ok." Dawn said still wondering who the girl was. "So who's your little friend in the picture?"

"That's Serena. I accidently bumped into her in the middle of the forest during a scavenger hunt. I guess she had fallen or something because her knee was really badly injured. I remember trying to cast a spell or something on it to try and make her feel better hah hah" Ash said as he reminisced. "Anyways, I helped her get back to the camp and get her to the nurse. After that incident, we were like the best of friends. We would hang out every day at the camp, be partners for every event, and just talk and talk. My guy friends and especially Gary used to tease us that we should just get married already. After summer camp had ended we still hung out alot but I think it was like a couple months later she had to move to another region because of her mom's work. It was something weird like Rhyhorn racing, I quite don't remember. And yeah, that's the story of Me and Serena." Ash said finally finishing his story.

"Wow." Dawn replied. "Did you guys ever see each other again?" Dawn asked feeling a bit bad for getting this deep into Ash's memories.

"No." Ash stated bluntly "After she had moved I never heard from her again. I really don't even remember where she moved to. It's a nice thing to smile back on though because I know that somewhere out there she's grown up just like me and enjoying this world as much as you or I do. Whether I'm in her memories or not."

"Sorry for bringing up the topic Ash." Dawn said apologetically.

"Nah." Ash retorted "Thanks for bringing it back up. I haven't thought about her, and even my past in general in quite a long time. You know with me being busy with the league, saving legendary pokemon and the world is quite the time killer!" Ash laughed out.

Dawn smiled, glad to see Ash was in a good mood about it. Even though he was rubbing in his achievements to her.

"Oh yeah you did all that stuff completely solo. I'd like to see you take on the challenge of saving the pokemon of time, space, and alternate realities again. It'd be quite the show this time." Dawn giggled out.

"Ehh point taken." Ash said to Dawn.

There was a moment of silence and Ash decided to sit down on the edge of his bed. He tapped the side of it to signal Dawn to sit down next to him. Dawn took a seat to his left and with a nervous blush and Ash broke the silence.

"So Dawn, have you figured out what you want to do, where to go in the next couple days?" Ash asked her.

Dawn blushed even more as she thought about how she wanted to answer the question.

"Well…" She stuttered. "I want to continue contests and stuff. I mean I'm still following my goal to be a top coordinator, but I still want to travel with you Ash." She said as her blush deepened even more.

It was Ash's turn to blush as he took in her words.

"You do?" Ash asked trying to conceal his red cheeks.

"Yeah, I mean you're one of my best friends Ash. When you left the Sinnoh region and I went to help Buneary model for the magazine, I felt so alone. Once Buneary had figured out that she hated modeling, I felt even more alone. I went to the Johto region to try and go for being a top coordinator. I got all the ribbons that I needed but I barely did that. When I got to the tournament itself I thought I could do well but I only got to the top 16." Dawn let out as tears started to form in her eyes.

"But, but you said you made it to the final two in Johto." Ash questioned to her noticing how emotional she was becoming.

"I lied Ash because I didn't want you thinking I was a failure. I never had anyone to travel with and almost no support throughout my journey there aside from my pokemon's. I was depressed to say the least." Dawn whimpered with tears now running down her cheeks. "After I had lost my match, I was approached by Cynthia in the dressing rooms. She had seen how devastated I was and offered to take me with her on a little trip to her summer home in the Unova region and I jumped on the opportunity. But I was totally surprised when she told me that she knew that you would be stopping by that I almost had a heart attack. So after we reunited, I decided that I wanted to keep traveling with you and well, I guess it's lead us right here." She said balling.

Tears were now flowing down Dawn's face like a river as she bent forward and was crying into her knees. Ash scrambled to think of something he could do to cheer her up and did the only thing he could think of.

* * *

Dawn's View

She just couldn't stop crying. Even next of her crush, in his room and on his bed, She just couldn't hold her emotions back. She had let everything out and now he knew one of her deepest secrets. She couldn't even bear to look at him, or even to lift her head from her knees as she just kept sobbing. As she was sobbing though, she felt a hand lay on her left shoulder. She brought her head up slightly and looked over to the boy next to her. With a gentle pull he sat her upright and looked straight into her eyes. Her tears had stopped flowing but her cheeks still glimmered from the moisture. Ash scooted closer to her and without words embraced her in a loving hug. Ash gently patted her back and once again her tears began to flow. Not as tears of sadness, but as tears of happiness as She thought about how she really had the greatest friend anybody could ever have and She wrapped her arms around him.

* * *

"Thank you Ash." Dawn whispered as she finally broke the warmed embrace. "You have no idea how much I've wanted to say that."

"It's no problem Dawn." Ash stated. "I'm always here for you. You're one of my best friends and nothing will ever change that. If you want to keep traveling with me, I'm just as excited for it as you are." He said as he put his hand on hers. "I promise that nothing will ever sever our friendship." and pulled her in for one last embrace.

"Thanks Ash." She said feeling like she was the luckiest girl on the planet.

"Anytime Dawn." Ash replied as he broke the second hug. "Now, what do you say we go downstairs and celebrate with a bunch of food?" Ash laughed out trying to make Dawn feel a bit more normal.

"Yeah, that sounds great Ash." Dawn replied finally calm again.

They both got up from the bed and walked downstairs and into the dining room where there was an abundance of food. There were plates of steamed vegetables, sliced berries, crackers and cheeses, pastas of all sorts, sandwiches, rice balls, bottles of sodas in every flavor imaginable, and in the center was a delicious looking cake with little pokemon figures on the top of it.

"Wow!" Ash and Dawn exclaimed together.

"I'm surprised that you're surprised by this." Ash's mom Delia joked.

"I know!" Iris exclaimed from her seat at the table. "He usually eats more than this for lunch!" She laughed out getting a puckered reaction from him.

"Cmon Iris, let up on him. I don't think he's eaten since last night's in flight meal." Cilan replied from the kitchen to which an earth shattering growl came from Ash's stomach.

"I guess you're right Cilan heh heh" Ash chuckled scratching the back of his head.

"Well go ahead and sit down you two," Delia said as she placed a loaf of bread on the table, "The other guests should be here any second now."

"Other guests?" Everybody else asked just as the doorbell rang.

"Speak of the devil!" Delia exclaimed as she ran to the door.

Ash looked at the others giving them a questioning look, only to get shoulder shrugs from them.

They all walked to the living room where the front door was and Ash's eyes lit up at the sight of who it was.

"Misty, and Gary!? Oh my Arceus what are you guys doing here?!" Ash exclaimed as his old friends walked in.

"Well, professor Oak told me you were back in town and I thought that I'd say hi before you surely leave for some other part of the world tomorrow." Misty responded to the overly excited boy.

"And I actually just got here from the Hoenn region last week so I thought it was appropriate to drop by and say hi to my old punching bag." Gary laughed out getting a steaming reaction from Ash. As his laughter subsided, Gary looked behind Ash and saw Cilan, Iris, and Dawn all with blank expressions. "Great to see you again Dawn but I don't believe I've met either of you." He walked over to Cilan and Iris and stuck out his hand.

Cilan was the first to shake. "It's a pleasure meeting one of Ash's old friends. My name is Cilan and I'm a pokemon connoisseur."

"A connoisseur huh? Sure is an interesting line of work." Gary Replied.

"I am a gym leader on the side too but, that job runs in the family." Cilan joked.

"Wow, a connoisseur and a gym leader. Sounds like you've got your arms full." He stated as he changed his view over to the girl with the biggest hairdo he'd ever seen. He had to admit she looked a bit ridiculous with it but she was strangely attractive. "And who might you be?" Gary asked to her.

"The names Iris, and I'm training to become a dragon master." Iris replied shaking Gary's hand.

"Wow, a dragon master. That sure is a bold goal." Gary stated with a very impressed manner.

"Yeah, well being born and raised in a place called the village of dragons sure will do that to you." Iris chuckled. "What about you, what's your goal?"

"Well, I've achieved mine already." Gary proclaimed. "I've become a field researcher and archeologist of ancient ruins and civilizations."

"Wow!" Iris exclaimed with awe in her eyes. "That's so cool! Tell me about some of the stuff you've done."

"May I do so over dinner?" Gary asked smoothly making Iris blush slightly.

"Ugg, there goes Gary again." Ash said mockingly. "C'mon guys let's eat already, I'm starving."

Everybody sat down at the rectangular table, it be so crowded with food that there was barely enough room for their plates. Ash had decided to sit down on the bottom left of the table with Dawn sitting next him and Cilan to her left. On the adjacent side sat Misty with Iris on her left and Gary sitting on the far right in front of Ash and Delia sat on the back width of the table. Once they had all been seated it was a total free for all. Everybody was grabbing for food to put on their plates like savages and Delia was left with a sweatdrop.

* * *

Professor Oak's View

As professor Oak finished up his microwave noodles, he got from the chair in his office and started to make a phone call that would determine whether Ash could carry 10 pokemon or not. Professor Oak had to admit, he was a little shaky due to the fact that he was about to make phone calls to some of the most powerful people on the planet. He dialed the phone number onto his video phone and hoped to get a response. The video phone rang multiple times before the other line picked up.

"Oh, hello there professor Oak. What might you be calling for at this time of night?" Cynthia, the Sinnoh league Champion asked him.

"Hello Cynthia. You see the reason I'm calling is because I need to talk to Mr. Goodshow about some personal business." Oak responded.

"Must be rather important if you need to talk to Mr. Goodshow. But why are you calling me about this and what business are you talking about?" Cynthia asked him.

"Well, I wanted to see if he would allow a pupil of mine to carry 10 pokemon with him instead of the standard 6." getting a nod from Cynthia. "You remember Ash Ketchum don't you?" Oak asked.

"You do realize he was at my summer home just a few weeks ago right?" Cynthia joked.

"Anyways," Oak started, "I think it's time he be granted this privilege. He has quite the resume on him considering He's gotten far in the leagues multiple times. Not to mention that he's saved dozens of legendary pokemon, defeated criminal organization, He's…"

"Professor I know." Cynthia stated cutting off the professor. "I've bared witness to many of these things and you know, I think that you're right. I do believe that he should have this privilege. You have my approval if that is what you're looking for."

"Thank you Cynthia, that sure will help in my little appeal." Oak replied.

"No problem professor. Anything else I could possibly help you with?" Cynthia asked him.

"Oh yes, there's one other thing. I don't really have Mr. Goodshow's number, you know, because only Champions have his number and all that." Oak rattled out.

"I'll do ya better. I'll patch him into the call right now." Cynthia stated.

"Oh excellent!" Oak stated.

Oaks screen suddenly divided in half, with Cynthia's screen on the top and a gray screen on the bottom half. After a few moments of beeping, the lower screen went to static and suddenly Mr. Goodshow appeared on the screen. But the picture of Mr. Goodshow didn't show for more than a second as everything was shaking around. It kept changing from blurs of one kind to blurs of another, almost as if the screen itself was shaking.

"Oh why hello Cynthia, what can I do ya for?" Panted the Pokemon League President.

"Hello Charles, you may want to stop running for a moment." Cynthia replied.

The camera went still as the sweaty president put the camera of his poketch still on him as he noticed there was a third person in the call.

"Why if it isn't professor Oak himself. It's been too long, how are you doing?" Mr. Goodshow asked him.

"Quite well Mr. Goodshow, but I'm here to ask you for a favor." Oak asked him.

"Well what might that be?" Goodshow asked.

"You remember my lad Ash Ketchum correct?" Oak said to the sweaty man.

"Oh of course, how could I forget him. Such a great kid. So what is it that you need for him." Goodshow asked.

"Well, due to his extensive and...heroic resume, I feel that he deserves the right to be able to carry 10 pokemon with him from this point on.

Mr. Goodshow instantly went into deep thought where he stood and was perfectly still, almost as if he were a statue. A smile quickly emerged on his face and he turned back towards the camera.

"What is your opinion on this Cynthia?" Goodshow asked her.

"I think that out of everybody on the earth, Ash definitely deserves it the most. And as the professor stated, he does have quite the resume." Cynthia spoke out.

"Well Oak my friend, there's your answer. The boy from here on out will be allowed to carry up to 10 pokemon in his party."Goodshow said getting a beamed look from the professor. "I'll have my secretaries confirm it and have it entered into the pokemon management system by the end of the night, no problem."

"That's wonderful!" Oak exclaimed extremely happy for the good news Ash was soon to get. "I'll surprise him with the information tomorrow morning. Thank you Mr. Goodshow!"

"Now if you don't mind, Mt. Coronet isn't going to climb itself!" Goodshow exclaimed as his screen went to static and finally into gray leaving only Cynthia on the screen.

"Did he say Mt. Coronet?" Oak asked sweat dropping.

"He even surprises me for what he can do at his age." Cynthia chuckled.

"It sure seems that way." Oak replied. "Anyways, thank you Cynthia. You've no idea how excited he will be about this."

"Think about getting it on camera." Cynthia joked. "Well, I've got to go. This weeks gym battle highlights are about to show on the tv and I never miss them."

"Certainly. Have a nice night then, and thanks again." Oak stated.

"Anytime professor." Cynthia said as her screen went gray and Oak celebrated with a quick fistpump.

* * *

Back at Ash's home.

The table was empty. All of the food had been eaten, all the drinks had been drank, and the fancy cake was now a pile of crumbs. Everybody around the table was clenching their stomachs and moaning in delight over how full they were from Delia's amazing cooking. Over the course of the feast, Ash had told Gary and Misty about his friends crazy adventures across the Unova region that he'd had with Cilan, Dawn, and Iris. Throughout the feast though, everybody aside from Iris had taken notice that Gary had been trying to play it smooth with her, telling jokes, talking about some of his biggest finds, and other things on that subject. After the feast was over though everybody had decided it would be interesting to go watch a movie. The movie that had been chosen to watch...Sharpedonado. They spent the next two hours laughing at how comically bad it was. After the movie had finished they had all just broke into random chatter. Cilan was talking to Misty about fishing and how they both shared a love for it. Gary was listening to Iris talk about her interesting stories involving dragon types. Finally Ash and Dawn were talking about their goals for the region they were going to head to.

"Well, I hear that Kanto has contests now. Would you want to journey through here again?" Dawn asked him through the thick of the other conversations.

"I don't know. I've already gotten all the badges here, so there really wouldn't be a place to train my pokemon at." Ash said feeling bad that both his goals and Dawn's were conflicting with each others. "How about the Portos Region. I hear that they're gyms and pokemon are pretty cool."

"I don't think that they have contests though…" Dawn said still thinking. "Umm...well, what about the Kalos region?"

"Well, I know they have gyms over there, but do they have contests for you?" Ash asked.

"I think they do, let me check Bulbapedia here, just a sec…" Dawn replied as she tapped around on her poketch.

"Yes the Kalos region has contests." Gary stated bluntly as he returned to his conversation with Iris.

"Oh really? Thanks Gary." Ash yelled over to him. "So does the Kalos region sound good to you Dawn" Ash asked her.

"Well, yeah I guess it does. It's a new region for us, has gyms and contests, that's all we really need right?" Dawn asked out.

"Sure sounds like it. Well I guess it's decided, we're headed to the Kalos region next!" Ash shouted out in excitement. "Hear the Cilan and Iris?"

"It's hard not to!" Iris yelled back.

"Ash, I think I need to tell you something." Cilan said. "Your friend Misty here has informed me that there's going to be a Kanto regional fishing tournament, and it's just what I've been looking to get involved in." Cilan said.

"Oh, well if it's what you want to do, and makes you happy I say go for it Cilan." Ash said feeling sad that his friend was going to leave from the group.

"I have something to add the that Ash." Iris said sounding a bit more sad and sincere.

"What's up Iris?" Ash asked her.

"Well, Gary told me that his next trip is to the Orange Islands." She spoke out. "Well, I think that I want to travel with him there and become an even stronger trainer. If that's ok with you Gary." Iris stated with a blush clearly forming under her face.

Gary's face bore the same fate and his cheeks turned as red as Pikachu's. "I...umm...of course...I mean if you want...yeah that's ok with me!" Gary stuttered out and getting a hug from Iris.

"Well, I guess it's just you and I Dawn." Ash said to her saddened that Iris was leaving too but somehow happy that it was just him and Dawn that were going to be traveling together.

Just as Ash had finished saying that his mother appeared in the room. "Well it sure sounds like you guys have a lot going on with all the talk I'm hearing. Well anyways, It's almost midnight so I'm headed off to bed. I'm afraid though that there's only one other room in the house and that's Ash's. There's the couch here so...make the appropriate sleeping arrangement. Misty and Gary it was nice seeing you again, goodnight everybody." and with that, Deliah walked up the flight of stairs and closed the door to her room behind her.

"Well I have my room back home, so you guys don't need to worry about me. But your Mrs. Ketchum is right though. It's almost midnight and I really need to get back home. I'll see you guys round later. It's been great seeing you again Ash!" Misty yelled as she closed the front door of the house behind her, starting up her car and driving away.

"Ok, well, I have a room with 2 beds rented out at the pokemon center down the road if someone wants to join me I guess." Gary stated.

"Ooh I will!" Iris exclaimed getting a surprised look from everybody in the room. "Oh you guys are such kids. He said there are two beds there so chill out." Iris stated with a blunt expression.

"Ok, well then I'll take it upon myself to sleep on the couch." Cilan spoke out grabbing everyone's attention. "I've always enjoyed the feel of them anyways."

"So I guess that means that Dawn is sleeping in my room with me then." Ash stated blushing at the statement and getting looks from everybody in the room, excluding Dawn who was also blushing at his statement. "Oh c'mon I have a twin bed built for a 10 year old, I can barely fit on that bed! Stop getting those ideas!"

"Well I guess that settles the whole sleeping arrangement." Cilan stated.

"Sure does, now c'mon Gary I'm tired." Iris said as she grabbed her backpack, Gary, and rushed out the front door in a split second.

"Well...I think I'm just going to change and head off to sleep myself." Cilan said as he grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of shorts from his backpack that he'd left in the corner and went to go and change, leaving Ash and Dawn alone.

"I think we should do the same." Ash said to Dawn.

"Yeah, it sure has been a really long day, and that food is making me all the more drowsy." Dawn stated.

"Ok, well since Cilan is changing in the bathroom, you can change in mine." Ash said.

"What about you?" Dawn asked.

"I'll just change in my room." Ash replied. "I change way more quickly than you do anyways."

"Yeah good point. And I guess since you're sleeping on the bed I'll just use my sleeping bag." Dawn said taking it and her clothes out of her backpack.

"I'm not sleeping on that thing, my knees practically hang off of it. I'll just sleep on the ground too." Ash stated as he too pulled it and his clothes out of his backpack.

"Oh, well ok then." Dawn said as they both started to walk upstairs.

They both entered Ash's room and placed they're sleeping bags next to each other. He pointed to the door that led to his bathroom and Dawn went in to change into her night clothes. Ash rushed to put his usual night attire on so that Dawn didn't accidently see him naked or anything. He took off his pants leaving only his boxers on. He removed his jacket that he'd worn all throughout Unova and tossed it on his bed. He then took off the black t-shirt that he wore over his white wife beater. He then quickly dove under the covers of his sleeping bag just as Dawn emerged from his bathroom wearing her pink sweat pants and her pink tanktop as she always did. Dawn turned off the lights and she too got into her sleeping bag.

"See you in the morning." Dawn sheepishly said to Ash with a slight blush.

"Yeah, you too." Ash replied with a little red on his face as well.

"Goodnight Ash." Dawn said rolling over on her side.

"Goodnight Dawn." Ash stated as he too rolled over on his side.

They both had their backs were to each other, shut their eyes and started to fall asleep. No longer than a minute later though, Ash was surprised when Dawn spoke again.

"Hey Ash?" Dawn asked him.

"Yeah Dawn?" Ash replied with a yawn.

"Do you think Gary and Iris are doing it right now?" Dawn giggled.

"Oh yeah, no doubt about it." Ash said laughing.

"Yeah, I thought so too." Dawn replied. "Goodnight Ash."

"Goodnight Dawn." He replied as they both drifted into a long awaited slumber.

**Wow. I mean wow. This has taken me way, way, WAY too long to write. I literally started this like last September. To be honest though, I had really only started it back then, dropped it, and came back to it within the last few days actually. I've finally found my muse and now I'm a writing machine! Ok onto more pressing matters. Now I know I probably screwed a lot of things up character discription wise, but I'm assuming you all know who these guys are and what they look like, but my punctuation is probably as bad as it gets but hang in there. Next chapter is where it's really going to be, which I'm starting right away. I swears it. Secondly, I'd like to say this has all been possible thanks to the Pokemon X and Y anime (specifically the japanese version) for inspiring me with their recent episodes having more power and emotion in them than all episodes of Best Wishes combined (which to be honest sucked, like a lot.) Thirdly, I'd like to thank all of the other Pokemon fanfictions that I've gotten inspiration from. To be honest, I think that Pokemon fans and fanfictions are some of the best out there. Fourth off I'd like to say that there will be no regular schedule with this. I'm a junior in highschool so there are a lot of things going on like homework, studying, friends, (hopefully a soon to be girlfriend!), and a bunch of drama at home so please bare with me there. And lastly, cool out there is no Portos region, I made it up lol so chill out, you haven't missed anything big in the pokemon world. Thank you, and I really mean Thank you to all of those who support my fanfiction. I happily accept all forms of compliments and criticism. Oh and P.S. I know that there aren't contests in Kalos, but Gary sure didn't ;) (dun dun duhhhh) Treecko Man Out!**


	2. Chapter 2: Morning Cometh

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon but I REALLY wish I could, because yeah. It would be awesome. I do not own any of the characters, I do however, own my own version of this Pokemon fanfiction and its characters. It is mine and it is my squishy. I hope you enjoy it, it's my first fanfiction I've ever written. Tell me what I did well on and what could be fixed, and yeah. Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy the fic!

**Pokemon: To Kalos and Beyond**

**Chapter 2: Morning Cometh**

* * *

As Dawn's eyes fluttered open, sunlight poured into her eyes with a stinging sensation. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, and took a look at her surroundings remembering where she was. Last night really had been a great one. Not to mention that she basically got to sleep next to her crush, Ash Ketchum. She looked over at the teen next to her who was still asleep on the ground. He was still out cold and was even drooling on his pillow...gross. She brought up her poketch to see what time it was. 11:07 A.M. "Wow, I slept in a lot." She thought to herself as she stood up. She looked at herself in Ash's mirror and like always, her hair was matted up from the all destructive bed head. She sighed as she grabbed the comb out of her backpack next to her and went into Ash's bathroom to straighten her hair. As she did so however, she decided taking a shower would be the easiest thing to do. She grabbed a pair of her usual clothes, which was a black and pink skirt that even she had to admit was getting too small for her comforts, her white tank top, her black legging socks, and a pair of pink underwear. She dropped them on the floor of the bathroom, closed the door behind her, got undressed and hopped into the shower. She turned it to a nice and relaxing hot temperature and started to clean herself off. She grabbed a bottle of soap, and looked around for a luffa, but realising that this was Ash's bathroom, she just used her hands. She grabbed for a bottle of shampoo, finding a bottle that was oran berry scented. She liked the way it smelled, and cleaned out her hair. To her disappointment there wasn't any conditioner, realizing once again that this was a boy's bathroom. She had probably been in the shower for 20 minutes and she decided to get out. She dried herself off with one of Ash's towels, which had a cute picture of a squirtle on it. She put on her new set of clothes, put her old ones back into her backpack and looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her hair was perfectly straight, just the way she liked it. Her skin was smooth and slightly pink from the hot shower. She quietly opened the door of the bathroom, trying to stay as quiet as she could knowing that Ash was still going to be asleep. She found her prediction was correct as she saw the teen was still in the exact spot he had been when she had woke up. She set her backpack down next to her sleeping bag and walked downstairs to see if anybody else was up. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she looked to her left into the living room to see that Cilan was still asleep on the couch and still in his night clothes. Dawn giggled at the little stunfisk slippers that he was wearing and she continued into the kitchen. As she entered she noticed a note on the countertop. She picked it up, reading it to find that it from Ash's mom saying that she was going to be doing some errands and wouldn't be back until later that day. She placed the note back where she had found it and moved over to the fridge. She grabbed out a carton of moo-moo milk and poured herself a glass. Dawn placed the carton back in the fridge and she moved over to the dining room where they had had the feast last night. As she took a drink of her milk she noticed that it was all cleaned off and the wooden tabled was gleaming like it had recently been cleaned. As Dawn was admiring everything though, she was startled when she heard a loud knock at the front door. She placed her glass down and went to answer it finding Iris was at the doorstep. She had a smile as big as a wailords, and seemed in as good of a mood as she had ever been in, which gave Dawn a few ideas of what was making her so happy.

"Hey Iris." Dawn greeted her, "Be kinda quiet. Cilan and Ash are still asleep."

"They're still asleep?" Iris asked aloud. "Geez and I thought I slept in late. She walked inside and Dawn closed the door behind her.

"So Iris, how'd you sleep last night?" Dawn asked with a giggle.

"Oh umm just fine. Thanks Dawn." Iris nervously laughed as she put her backpack on the ground.

"You certainly have a nice glow to you." Dawn laughed as she teased Iris.

"Oh, thanks again." Iris replied even more sheepishly as she walked to the dining room and sat down in one of the chairs. Dawn followed her and sat across from her where her milk was.

"Why do you seem so on edge?" Dawn devilishly asked with a raised eyebrow getting a panicked reaction from the big haired girl.

"I'm not I'm...uhh…" Iris stuttered trying to think some words as a blush clearly was forming on her face.

It was now very clear to Dawn that something had gone down and she wanted to make it her goal to find out. And with a stroke of brilliance, she had a plan.

"So where's Gary at?" Dawn asked.

"Oh, well he's just washing up right now." Iris replied staring out the window behind Dawn trying to forget that she was talking to her.

Dawn picked up her glass of moo moo milk and took a sip. "Mmm." Dawn moaned. "It's so creamy, you know?" She grinned feeling a little evil for what she was doing.

"I would think heh heh…" Iris replied with her face glowing even more red.

Dawn was now 100% sure that Iris was hiding something. She decided to stop playing around and to just drop the bomb on Iris. With an evil grin "So Iris," Dawn started "What did you and gary do last night?"

Iris froze up and all of the color in her skin drained out. Her face however, was the brightest shade of red Dawn had ever seen on someone's face.

Realizing she was busted, Iris sighed in defeat and looked over at the blunett who was finishing off her glass of milk. "You swear you won't tell anybody Dawn?" Iris asked embarrassed by the situation.

"Iris, we knew the second you ran out that door what was gunna go down." Dawn laughed as she set her glass down.

"Well, let me start off by talking about how evil you are!" Iris yelled at Dawn who was laughing at her.

"Yeeaah I know I am. Anyways, last night?" Dawn asked.

"Well," Iris started "When we got to the pokemon center, Gary and I checked into our room. It was just like he said, two separate beds. Gary went to change in the bathroom and I changed in the room. Well, I got changed and all that, and so I went to throw my clothes into my backpack, which I left by the front door. Right after I did that though, Gary comes out of the bathroom wearing just a pair of basketball shorts. No shirt or anything!" Iris went on.

"Ooh does he have abs?" Dawn asked interrupting Iris's story.

"He's chiselled and has a six pack!" Iris practically squealed. "Anyways," Iris went on no longer embarrassed, "He comes out of the bathroom, and our faces are like a foot apart. We kind of stared at each other for a long time until he just leans in and he kissed me!"

"Wait," Dawn interrupted, "He kissed you?"

"And it was amazing!" Iris squealed again. "Hands down the best kiss I've ever had."

"So what happened after that? That can't be all that happened." Dawn asked enthralled by what Iris was telling her.

"After that, well things kind of just snowballed. We made out. Like a lot. Like for probably half an hour." Iris said as she started to drool a little. "Things got way more heated and well...you can fill in the dots."

"Wow." Dawn said picturing what Iris had told her in her head. "Was that your first time?" she asked slightly worried for her.

"No, I had a boyfriend back at the village of dragons. We started dating like three years ago and we did a lot of stuff. After a while things just weren't working out so we broke up. It was actually like a week before I meet Ash actually." Iris stated going back through her memories.

"So do you like Gary?" Dawn asked Iris trying to dig a little deeper.

"He's such an amazing guy." Iris started. "He's just so handsome, in shape, and his voice makes me want to melt! He also sounds like a really strong trainer, like he could really compete with Ash."

"Wow." Dawn thought aloud. She knew that Gary had been a rival of Ash's a long time ago, but to hear that he hadn't lost his touch really put into perspective the kind of guy that Gary was.

"Yeah, and his line of work is just so cool that, I just think he's the one!" Iris squealed for the umpteenth time.

"That's great. I really hope that you guys hit it off when you leave." Dawn replied feeling a little down that she hadn't yet gotten her "one".

"I really wish we could have had some more girl time like this." Iris said making Dawn look back up. "After traveling with those guys for like a year and a half and not having any other girls to talk to was really frustrating haha." Iris laughed out.

"Yeah I do too, It's been the same for me really. I started my journey with Ash and Brock more than three years ago, and since then I haven't haven't really had any quality time like this." Dawn said looking back through her memories. "And my journey through Johto was just like that too, except I didn't even have anyone else with me. It was just me and my pokemon and to be perfectly honest, they may be the most cuddly things out there but they can't really hold a conversation." She said with a chuckle as tears starting to form in her eyes.

"Dawn, are you okay?" Iris asked worried about her friend.

"Yeah, I'm better now than I was then. I just need to take the chance." Dawn said as she was drifting into thought.

"Take the chance? What are you talking about Dawn?" Iris questioned feeling even more worried for the girl.

She sighed and decided that she'd just spill her secret, "I think that I'm in love with Ash." Dawn said bluntly getting a mixed reaction from Iris.

"Dawn," Iris started, "That couldn't be any more obvious. Why do you think that Cilan and I poke so much fun at you and Ash being the perfect couple?" she asked with a laugh.

"Well, I kinda had the feeling that you guys knew...but letting Ash know is something that I've always wondered about. I mean he's like the perfect guy for me, but I don't even know if it would be a good idea to tell him. We're like best friends and I'm afraid that if I tell him how I feel then this friendship will end if he doesn't end up feeling the same way. You get what I mean right Iris?" Dawn asked with genuine concern.

"Dawn, you've got to take that chance. Ash is a really great guy, personally too childish for my tastes but you get my point. He's someone who would never give up on his friends no matter what. And knowing him, it wouldn't surprise me if he's put his life on the line to protect someone or something he cares about. I really doubt he'd want to stop being friends with you over something as trivial as dating." Iris responded to Dawn.

"Wow Iris, I never thought about it in that way...thanks. That really helps." Dawn stated realizing that there really wasn't a threat of losing Ash.

"Glad I could help you out Dawn." Iris said getting a smile back from the bluette.

* * *

"_It's time for this universe to be reborn, turned into one with no violence, with no crime, with no fear! A world where I control, and peace rains throughout the lands! You cannot stop us BOY. You, your friends, your pokemon, you've all failed to stop me! You thought you could take on Team Galactic by yourselves and win?! What a joke! Guards, bring them to me!"_

_Ash could barely feel anything. His body felt like he was on fire, his muscles seemed to be screaming in agony, and he could barely see. Everything was blurry. He felt two people grab his arms as they dragged him across the rocky ground of the cavern he was in. His seared and torn clothes providing no protection against the gravel that was stabbing his skin like small knives. Finally the two people dropped him on the ground with no consideration for him as he hit the ground with a heavy thud making him cry out in pain. His head on its side, he opened his eyes as a wave of horror hit him. Tears formed in his eyes as he saw his friends, Brock and Dawn both unconscious, thrown to the ground with just as much force as he had been. Both were battered, their skin charred in many place, and blood was trickling down their faces. Ash grit his teeth as he got to his knees and looked at the man in front of him._

"_Why?" The man asked him. "Why would you put up so much resistance to me, my team, my goals? Don't you want peace? Freedom? Endless happiness? The new universe will hold all of that and more! This world has been corrupted by us humans, and must be reborn. It's the only way we can move forward."_

"_Our world is perfect!" Ash yelled and blood spit out. "It's filled with peace, freedom. You just fail to see them! You're all monsters! You're hurting people and pokemon on your little quest for power! If you really were for all the things you claim you are then you wouldn't…" He tried to yell out but was cut off by a kick to his stomach._

"_You really are ignorant aren't you child. I feel sorry for you and your pitiful attempt to try and stop me. But I must give credit where it is due." The man went on as Ash lay on the ground. "You managed to get to find secret headquarters here in the Sinnoh caverns, and even make it this deep in it. Well, I'm sad to say that this is as far as you will make it." He said as he pulled a revolver out from under his robe. "I hate to do this to kids, but you insist on stopping us, so it seems it's what has to be done."_

"_No! Stop!" Ash screamed out as the man walked over to Brock and without speaking shot him in the head. "Nooo!" Ash cried out as tears ran down his face. "You monster! I swear to Arceus, if you hurt Dawn I'll kill you myself!" He screamed as the man walked over to her._

"_And how will you do that?" He asked with a maniacal laugh. "You're on the ground, laying in pool of your own blood. You're surrounded by me and my team members. You're pokemon have all been defeated, some of whom I'm going to say will end up dying from their wounds. You don't have a weapon of any sort, and you're saying you can kill me when I'm holding a gun and you can barely stand?! I admire your persistence but I'm afraid that it has cost you and your friends your lives." With that the man looked away from Ash and without hesitance fired a round into Dawn's head. "Now, since that's over I do believe that It's your turn to go." the man said turning towards Ash and walking towards him. _

_Ash felt an energy build up in him...one that he had tried to suppress, but he knew that his rage was soon going to take over. _

"_When you shoot me," Ash started getting a surprised reaction from the man "I want you to look into my eyes and see my soul leave my body."_

"_With pleasure my boy." The man said as he kicked Ash in his stomach, flipping him on his back. The man leaned over him, with his gun pointed at Ash's head "With plea….what the hell?!" He yelled as he saw Ash's eyes light up with a bright blue azure._

_In less than a second Ash's fist was coated in a blue pulse of pure aura. He grabbed the man by his coat with his left and in one swift motion, Ash drove his fist through the man's chest and out the other side. The guards around them stared in shock and awe, seeing their leader with a fist straight through his stomach. The man collapsed onto his knees, with Ash's fist still inside him. He looked up at Ash, whose eyes were still radiating blue aura. Feeling nothing but fear, he slid off Ash's arm and collapsed onto the ground. Ash shook the blood off his arm as looked over at both of his dead friends and feeling his anger take over again. Ash looked back over to the guards and other members of Team Galactic around him, still frozen and speechless about what they had just witnessed. He grinned, liking the feeling of the fear that was filling the cavern. _

"_So…" Ash spoke as the aura around his fists grew "Who's next!?"_

* * *

Ash woke up, panting like he had been holding his breath for an hour. His eyes were burning and his hands felt like they were on fire. He could make out the bright blue spheres of aura that were formed around his hands through his blurry vision. His rapidly shook his hands, dissolving the aura and he furiously rubbed his eyes until the burning sensation had, for the most part, gone away. He let a sigh of relief, thankful that it had just been a dream and he wiped the sweat away from his forehead. He'd been having a lot nightmares like that recently, many which were revolved around the more horrid things that he had seen on his travels. He was getting afraid of his aura powers though, they seemed to be acting up after really emotional dreams like that one. He sat up and looked at the clock on his desk and saw it said it was 11: 48. He then looked over and saw that Dawn wasn't in her sleeping bag, and assumed that she had probably woken up hours ago.

"Dang, I guess I was more tired than I thought." He said talking to himself.

Ash got out of his sleeping bag and went over to his dresser and looked for something to where, which was more challenging than he had thought because all of the clothes were from when he was only 10 years old. He looked around and found his clothes from yesterday and decided to just throw those on and forget the hassle. He looked in the mirror, satisfied with his look and walked downstairs to see if everyone else was up, and just as he thought, he heard conversation coming from the dining room. As he walked by the living room though, he noticed that Cilan was still asleep and was wearing those stupid stunfisk slippers that he had told him to throw out dozens of times. Ash chuckled and proceeded towards the dining room where he found Dawn and Iris talking with each other.

"Morning guys." Ash said startling the two girls and getting their immediate attention. "Sleep well?" He asked standing against the table.

"Oh, morning Ash." Dawn said with a cheerful smile. "I slept really well, but I can't really say the same for Iris though." she said with a wink as Iris's face went as red as cheri berry.

"Why, was your bed to stiff or something Iris?" Ash asked Iris with heavy sarcasm.

"Oh yeah!" Iris quickly blurted. "The bed was as hard as a rock! Oh and the blankets, they were as rough as sandpaper!" she said, her face still bright red.

"Hmm, that's funny Iris…" Ash started.

"What do you mean?" She asked nervously.

"I thought you liked it hard and rough!" He laughed out as all the color drained from Iris's face and she puddled onto the ground.

"Ash Ketchum!" Dawn yelled at him with anger, but after a moment turned to she burst out laughing. "That was perfect!" She laughed and elbowed him lightly.

"BERLITZ!" Iris yelled as she got up, now filled with rage and embarrassment.

"Cool out Iris, we figured it out last night." Ash said getting her to calm down.

"You're both evil you know that!" She yelled slamming her fist on the table and making the other two laugh even harder.

"I'm sorry, it's just too much fun!" Dawn said still laughing at the big haired girl.

"Yeah, well not when it's at my expense!" Iris boomed making them laugh so hard Ash had collapsed on the floor.

"What's with all the commotion in here?" Yawned a tired Cilan as he walked into the dining room seeing Ash and Dawn laughing their faces off. His had a little drool running down it and his hair a total mess. "And what's so funny?"

Iris panicked and went off, "Nothing! Nothing at all, just going over the day plans like usual!"

"Well that's the lie of the century...I'm just going to go change." He said sleepily as he drooped over to the bathroom.

Iris looked over at Ash and Dawn "Will you two can it already!" She yelled. "It's not that funny!"

"Ash," Dawn said trying to stop laughing "She's right, let's give her a break."

"Alright, alright." Ash said getting up still red from all the laughter. "I'm sorry Iris."

Iris sighed, "It's alright…" She grumbled.

"Okay," Ash started "In all seriousness though, we really should go over the day plans though, seeing as there's going to be a lot of parting ways and what not." Ash said with a little sadness in his voice.

"Yeah that's true." Dawn agreed catching wind of the change in Ash's attitude.

"Don't start without me though!" Cilan chimed in a cheery manner as he walked over to the table wearing his usual formal attire and his hair greased back.

"Wow." The group all replied at once.

"Cilan, how'd you get ready that fast?" Dawn asked, stunned by the speed and quality of his change.

"No kidding," Ash started "you were gone like, less than a minute. How'd you get ready that quickly?"

"It's kind of creepy don't you think?" Iris asked just as stunned as the others.

"It's a connoisseur's secret." Cilan winked and chuckled as the others sweatdropped at him.

**Hey everybody, Treecko Man here...and I really want to apologize. This has taken me kind of a long time to write and well...there isn't as much content as I wanted there to be. I've been very, very busy. Both literally and emotionally...it's a long story. I've been watching a lot of anime, Sword Art Online mostly, (a bloody epic show which I highly recommend). I've had an assload of tests, and quizzes, not to mention prom. Also yesterday, (may 4th) was my birthday. Yay me! So yeah a lot of stuff. I originally wanted this chapter to be about 10-13k words, but because of how long it's been since I last posted, I thought it's probably for the best that I post the 4k words that's in this chapter as kind of a mini one. Hopefully it has answered a lot of your questions though. I have decided to have an aura using Ash and he will be learning to uses it very soon from the help of an old friend. (hardcore fans, yall know exactly who I'm talking about.) I realize that other writers out there usually publish chapters that are this length but, for some reason I like the chapters that are like 10-13k words long. Which brings up a question I forgot to write in the last chapter. Do you guys want me to write smaller chapters, one's about 4-6k words long and have them come out once every to every other week, or have them be like 10-13k words long and have me post like once, maybe twice a month if I can. Tell me in the comments. I'll do as much as I can but for the next month, it's going to be finals prep and all that other fun stuff that a junior in high school has to deal with, but after all that hassle, I swear I'll be pumping out chapters! One last thing, I swear. Thank you so much to everyone for the massive support on my last chapter. I mean holy crap, 22 follows and 18 favs for just one chapter?! You guys are awesome! (although I'd like some more reviews *cough cough*) All critisisms and compliments are accepted with open arms. Next chapter I'm hoping will be longer and will finally be the introduction to the Kalos region, but not before an epic goodbye though ;) Anyways, Thank you all so much, and I'll see you all in the next chapter! Treecko Man Out!**


	3. Chapter 3: Battle at the Ranch

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon but I REALLY wish I could, because yeah. It would be awesome. I do not own any of the characters, I do however, own my own version of this Pokemon fanfiction and its characters. It is mine and it is my squishy. I hope you enjoy it, it's my first fanfiction I've ever written. Tell me what I did well on and what could be fixed, and yeah. Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy the fic!

**Pokemon: To Kalos and Beyond**

**Chapter 3: Battle at the Ranch**

* * *

"So I guess that decides it then." Ash spoke with a saddened tone to his friends who were still gathered in the dining room. "Iris is going to travel with Gary and Cilan is headed to a fishing tournament."

"I can't believe that after traveling with you guys for so long we're going to split up." Iris replied. "It seems like we've been traveling forever now, you guys are like my family."

"It's a good thing though," Cilan spoke out. "we're all chasing dreams that we want to accomplish and that the most important thing to think about."

"Yeah, I guess that's one of putting it." Ash said, still saddened about the situation.

"Well, I'm sure we'll all meet up again," Dawn chimed in "just like Iris said, we're like family."

"And to be fair, we still have the rest of the day left before we split, so I say we take the opportunity to do something exhilarating before that happens." Cilan replied.

"Well," Iris thought out loud "I've been wanting to kick a certain boy's butt in a battle!" she cracked giving a glare over in Ash's direction.

"Hey, just because you've never won a battle against me, that doesn't mean you're a bad trainer!" Ash hastily replied afraid the girl might hit him.

"Well I think that my dragonite could take on any pokemon you have! Let's head back to Professor Oak's ranch." Iris said elevating her voice "Pick any pokemon you have and we will beat you!"

"I have an interesting idea for us if you wouldn't mind." Cilan interrupted gaining the attention of the others.

"As long as it involves me getting to beat him a battle I'll listen." Iris said pouting her face.

"Well, how about the four of us all have one big free for all battle?" Cilan asked getting a surprised and satisfied look from the rest of the gang. "We all use one pokemon and we duke it out one last time. What do you guys think?" He asked.

The room was silent for a short moment and everybody stared at him as if he had just shown them the greatest magic trick they had ever seen.

"Or we don't have to if you guys don't want to…" Cilan said as he sweatdropped.

"Cilan, have I ever told you how much of a genius you are?" Iris said with grin.

"Well...not really." Cilan sighed getting a pouted face from Iris.

"Cilan, I think that's an awesome idea." Ash said giving him a thumbs up. "I say we head over to the ranch right now! Man this is going to be great! Dawn, you're in on this too right?" He asked to her.

"Well of course." She calmly replied "I think this is a battle that I'm never going to forget!"

"Well it looks like that settles that." Cilan chimed in. "I think that we should probably get going though seeing as it's already 12:20."

The rest of the gang agreed with him and went to grab their backpacks and other things seeing as they wouldn't be coming back to the house again. After another 20 minutes they had all of their clothes and other things packed up and ready to go. They all exited the house and started the hike to get to the professor's ranch.

* * *

"Man…" Cilan panted as he collapsed onto the ground in front of the Professor's ranch. "Hills and I still don't seem to get along too well."

"C'mon Cilan get up," Iris taunted the exhausted connoisseur "The hill was barely at an angle!"

"Whatever you say Ms. Tarzan." Cilan retorted as he picked himself up and took in a deep breath.

"Guys, can we please go and have our battle now?" Ash asked like a child wanting a piece of candy.

"Yeah," Dawn started "I don't know how much longer Ash can hold in his excitement before he pops." She said with a giggle.

"I can't help it! You know exactly how much I like to battle!" Ash yelled back.

"Geez...I'm surrounded by a bunch of kids." Iris laughed getting glares from everyone.

"Now what's this I hear about a battle?" A new voice chimed in.

Everyone turned to see Professor Oak standing in the doorway with a large smile on his face.

"Oh hey Professor!" Ash yelled out. "We're going to have a free for all battle between each other before we all split up and go our separate ways."

"Well...that certainly is an interesting concept." Oak replied as he rubbed his chin. "Quite a bang to end the show I would say."

"I guess that's one way to put it." Cilan said as the group all started to enter the facility.

"So, is it okay if have our battle out back?" Ash asked to the Professor.

"But of course. Who am I to stop something that you all seem so passionate to do?" Oak retorted. "I'd suggest you use the fields though. A lot of the pokemon here have made homes over in the wooded areas."

"Right." The group all responded as the walked out the back doors and into the fields of the ranch.

All of their pokemon were frolicking around and looked like they were having a great time. Pikachu and Buneary were sitting under a tree and seemed to be talking to each other. Mamoswine was laying in one of the large ponds, probably trying to stay cool and Crustle was napping right next to it. Pansage, Axew, and Stunfisk were riding on the back of Dragonite with Emolga and Togekiss closely following them. Pachirisu and Quilava were playing with Ash's Gible and the three were chasing each other around. The rest weren't around and were more than likely in the woods doing their own things.

"Well it's good to see they're all getting along well." Dawn stated as they started walking towards their pokemon.

Most of their pokemon saw them walking towards and started to charge towards them with smiles on their faces. Ash, was once again taken down full force by all of his pokemon while Cilan, Dawn, and Iris were all simply getting licks and hugs from theirs. As Ash managed to get out of the dog pile of his pokemon he noticed that one of them was on the sidelines watching him win a grin on his face. Buizel. Ash got a smile and walked over to the otter pokemon.

"Hey Buizel, you been doing good lately? I didn't get to see you much yesterday." Ash said as he started to pet it behind its ears.

Buizel turned its head and looked away from his trainer and muttered a few barks before looking back at him. Buizel growled slightly while backing up a few steps. Ash was confused about what Buizel was doing until he saw a white glow came from its paw. Buizel looked back at Ash and charged at him with all his might, throwing a powerful ice punch right into Ash's stomach. Ash let out a sharp cry that gained the attention of everyone around him and they all watched as he was coated with a thin layer of ice. Moments later, the ice around Ash crumbled and he collapsed onto the ground, with multiple gasps following.

Ash got back onto his knees and looked at the angered otter, "Glad to see you've gotten even stronger since I left you here buddy." he said as he wrapped his arms around it and getting a cheerful cry from it; everyone watching simply sweatdropped and went back to what they had been doing.

"Hey Buizel," Ash started getting a questioned look from it. "The four of us Cilan, Dawn, Iris and I, are going to have a free for all battle and I want to use you in it. Whaddya say?"

"Bui! Bui bui!" Buizel barked as a fireball of excitement erupted in its eyes.

"I knew you'd be up to it." Ash smiled as he rubbed Buizel's ears once more getting a soft coo from it. "You still remember our secret move though don't you?" Ash asked to it as it responded with a grin. "Awesome, now, let's go kick some butt!"

Ash got up and looked behind him to see most of his pokemon were either sitting or lying down waiting for him to stop talking to Buizel so they could get his attention. Ash looked over to the others who were all still cuddling and wrestling with their pokemon.

"Hey guys!" Ash yelled out getting their attention "You pick who you're going to battle with yet?"

"I'm all good!" Iris replied as she gave Dragonite a fistbump.

"Same here!" Dawn yelled back as picked up her Quilava.

"Ready when you guys are!" Cilan replied as Pansage jumped up in excitement.

All of Ash's pokemon looked at him, confused about what he was talking about.

"Oh, right I forgot to tell all of you guys." Ash said rubbing the back of his head. "The four of us are going to have a free for all match against each other in just a bit before we all head our separate ways."

All of his pokemon's eyes grew with just as much excitement as Buizel's had. They all ran up to him and started crowded around him, begging to be used in one last match.

"Hey, chill out guys. I already decided I'm going to use Buizel!" Ash cried out again trying to stop the mob around him.

After they had all heard this, most of them started to pout and some even trotted away.

"Maybe next time!?" Ash yelled out trying to make them feel a bit better.

"You sure do have a way with words Ash." Iris taunted him.

"It sure looks that way." Ash said sweat dropping.

"Well, in any case, are you guys ready to go?" Cilan asked to them.

"Yeah." Dawn replied as she set Quilava down. "I think the best place to battle at would be over there." She said as she pointed over to a large clearing in the distance.

"Sounds like a plan." Ash said as he looked back to Buizel "Let's kick some ass just like in the good old days buddy." He whispered and they both gave a fistbump.

* * *

Everybody was in their positions and the battle was about to start. They were in a large diamond, with a decent amount of space between them all. A psychic barrier had been set up by almost a dozen pokemon, to protect the pokemon that were going to spectate the battle. Almost all of the pokemon at the ranch, even the ones that didn't even belong to Ash, had shown up and circled around the makeshift battlefield, eager to see who the victor would be. Pikachu and Piplup, both sitting on Snorlax's shoulders, were pouting about not being in the fight.

Ash was using Buizel, Cilan had chosen to battle with Pansage, Dawn was using Quilava, and Iris was paired with Dragonite. They were all in their battle stances and ready to start, waiting only on the go-ahead from Professor Oak who was standing on the sidelines. Ash was running through strategies in his head at an exhilarating speed, thinking about what his first move should be, who he should use it on, what moves might the others start with, who outsped who, who had advantages over who, along with hundreds of other variables. Finally, Ash found the strategy that he thought would be the best, one that he thought would be the most likely to occur within the first few chaotic seconds of the battle.

Buizel turned its head slightly, and with a sharp grin on its face, gave Ash a reassuring nod that had faith in his decisions. Ash smiled and gave a silent nod that still managed to share a thousand words of both excitement and confidence. They both looked back to the battlefield, ready for the call to start, glaring down the others in the four way standoff.

"We got this." Ash thought to himself. "I know that Buizel and I can win this. His strength is incredible, his drive for victory is unparalleled, and I know that because of all of the things that we've been through. Through gym battles, the Sinnoh league, against enemies of peace, and legends themselves. I'm sorry for leaving you here buddy, I hope that this can…"

"Go!" Oak yelled diving back from the battlefield through the psychic barrier.

Ash's thoughts stopped immediately and his brain went right into action, initiating the first step of his plan hoping his prediction had been right.

"Buizel, aqua jet straight up!" Ash yelled out as Buizel did so without hesitation.

Not even a moment afterwards, a stream of bullet seeds obliterated the bottom tail of the aqua jet, just barely missing Buizel. Ash grinned. He had been right.

"Buizel, dive bomb onto Quilava!" Ash yelled out he saw Pansage take a direct hit from a flamethrower attack.

Buizel now about forty feet in the air spun and with an instantaneous u-turn, started its attack on the unaware fire type. Ash heard Dawn cry out to Quilava to dodge the incoming attack. It hesitated. Buizel's aqua jet hit right onto Quilava's back, sending a loud cry of pain out as Buizel shot back into the air with another aqua jet.

Ash quickly looked back to resituate the battle. Quilava was down for the moment, but He knew it'd only be a matter of seconds until it got back up. Pansage was giving a loud roar out, showing that it was still fine after the attack it had just taken. There was one thing missing though...Dragonite. He searched for it in a panic seeing it was nowhere on the field. Then Ash noticed one thing. The devilish smile that was on Iris's face. Ash's attention shot back up to Buizel, only to see that it was falling back down to the earth with a cry as Dragonite hit it with a thunder punch attack. Ash had looked away for three seconds, tops, but they had cost him. As Buizel hit the ground, it sent a large plume of dust and dirt into the air. It was that moment that Ash realized that he couldn't let go of his focus. Not even for one second.

"Buizel, are you okay?!" Ash yelled out to it as it jumped back to its feet and back into its battle stance. Seeing Buizel was still in shape to fight, he wasted no time giving a command.

"Dodge backwards!" Ash cried out as Buizel dove back, barely dodging a powerful ice beam from Dragonite.

"Now use sonicboom!" Ash yelled out as Buizel whipped its tails, creating a quick, but powerful sonic boom that hit Dragonite directly in it chest sending it flying back toward Iris with a cry. Ash grinned but quickly shook it off as he focused back to the battle.

"Buizel, use…" Ash started but he was cut off as a blinding light formed on the battlefield that made him have to cover his eyes. After a moment, the light faded, but was soon back but with less intensity. He looked back to Buizel through his squinted eyes who was rubbing its eyes from the harsh light. Ash noticed the flames on Quilava's back rise to incredible levels and he realized what had happened. Dawn had used Sunny Day. Ash grit his teeth knowing that Buizel's water type moves were going to be a lot less powerful from the intense heat so he quickly had to make a choice on what to do.

"Buizel, that light was a sunny day attack, so we're going to have to do our best to deal with it okay?!" He shouted out getting a nod back from the otter. Ash looked back at the battlefield trying to make a move as fast as he could. He saw Pansage was charging up a solar beam, taking advantage of the sunny day attack. It looked as though it was aimed towards Quilava who was starting a charge towards the grass monkey. But Ash's eyes darted to the right just in time to see a flamethrower attack head towards both him and Buizel.

"Buizel dodge left!" Ash cried out as he dove to his side, the flamethrower singeing the back of his jeans. He could feel the heat of it as was still passing him and reflecting off the psychic barrier. When he no longer felt the heat flying by, he got to his knees and looked over to Buizel, who was running towards him. Ash felt it's soft paws on his back as it pulled him up to his feet. Ash thanked Buizel, petting its head getting a soft coo in return. He looked back to the direction where the attack came from and saw Dragonite with a very concerned look. All the pokemon outside the dome were crying out and clawing at the barrier trying to see if he was okay, the psychic type pokemon struggling to keep it up. Ash rose his hand in a motion to signify that he was okay and the pokemon, for the most part, calmed down. He looked back to the gang, ready to get the back to the battle.

"Hey Ash?!" Iris yelled from across the field "You alright?"

Ash let out a chuckle before he called back "I'm fine, but you owe me a new pair of pants!"

"Only if you beat me!" She yelled back making Dawn and Cilan sweatdrop a little about how serious she was taking the battle.

"So," Dawn called out regaining everyone's attention, "Back to the battle?"

"Right, so…" Cilan yelled out, "I think that the best way to do resume, would probably be to have…"

"Dragonite use dragon rush on Pansage!" Iris cried out, interrupting Cilan and bringing back the chaos.

Ash's mind shot back to the battle. Scanning the field and taking in what was happening as fast as he could. Dragonite's body was consumed by the pulsating dragon type energy as it was descending on Pansage who was running and charging up a high power solar beam thanks to sunny day. Ash quickly looked over to Dawn and Quilava who seemed to taking in the whole scene as they were both watching Dragonite's attack. Ash grinned as he saw this was his chance to make his move.

"Buizel, use aqua jet on Quilava and follow it up with a sonic boom!" Ash yelled as Buizel wasted no time starting its attack.

Buizel shot up into the air, but with less velocity compared to a normal aqua jet. Still, the distance between it and Quilava was closed in just a matter of seconds. Buizel scored yet another direct hit on the fire pokemon and sent it flying back. With all its might, Buizel dissolved its aqua jet, and while still in the air, spun and shot a powerful sonic boom attack from its tails. The attack once again hit Quilava, causing a large explosion as it made contact. Buizel quickly got back into its aqua jet and headed back towards Ash to get another command.

Ash looked around once more. Quilava had more than likely fainted after an attack as harsh as that, and he didn't want to beat it while it was still down. He glanced back to Dragonite and Pansage to see that they were still locked in close quarters, which gave Ash the perfect target.

As Buizel whizzed by, Ash shouted out his plan, "Buizel, it's time for our secret move!" Ash yelled getting a raised paw from the otter.

Buizel quickly flipped around and sped towards Dragonite and Pansage who were still interlocked with each other and struggling to make headway. Buizel suddenly shot forward with immense speed a moment later as Sunny Day faded off. Ash grinned, knowing that the power of his makeshift move, Ice Aqua Jet, would only gain more power. Buizel once again, closed the distance, but just before it made contact, Buizel fired off a quick, but powerful ice punch, freezing the aqua jet and creating a giant ice shard right is slammed into Pansage and Dragonite. An explosion of ice and powdered snow erupted across the field as it hit its mark, along with a shockwave that not only created vibrations in the psychic barrier, it knocked off Ash's hat. As the dust and powdered ice began to settle, Ash saw the victor of the attack. Buizel was atop Dragonite, who lay with its back to the ground and pansage on its stomach. Both of which had swirls in their eyes.

Oak rushed into the field and checked on the two pokemon, "Dragonite and Pansage can no longer Battle!" he yelled getting an infuriated look from Iris and a calm response from Cilan.

"What the heck was that Ketchum!?" Iris yelled from across the field as Buizel did a victory dance on her pokemon.

"That my dear," Ash said with an accent and in a taunting manner, "was Ice Aqua Jet!"

"That was amazing Ash!" Cilan yelled from where he was. "I've never seen such a move that was that creative in all my life!

"It's a classic," Ash started, "one I used all the back when-"

A bright light shot over from Dawn's side of the field. The light was blinding beyond belief, and everyone covered their eyes for the second time that battle. All Ash could think of was it being Team Rocket trying to steal his pokemon again and he got ready for whatever was about to happen.

The light ceased but instead of seeing Team Rocket and their stupid balloon, he saw a large creature which let out a fierce roar.

"PHLOOOSION!" it roared with a loud cry.

Ash gasped and recognized what the light was. It was the light from a pokemon evolution. Quilava had evolved!

Everyone's eyes were locked onto the large fire type that was letting out fierce war cries. Everyone had a look of shock, everyone except for Dawn who had tears in her eyes.

"Quilava, you...you evolved!" She yelled as she ran towards her newly evolved pokemon.

Typhlosion looked back towards Dawn, and ran towards her as they embraced in a large hug.

Ash couldn't tell what it was they were saying to each other, but he knew that they were words of happiness and pride. He smiled, glad for his friend who now had a new powerful member to her already powerful team.

"Hey Ash!" he heard Dawn yell from across the field. "We still have a battle going you know!" She yelled in a teasing manner.

"I wouldn't be right to not let Quil...Typhlosion test its new power. I'm ready when you are!" He yelled over to her.

"Well in that case, Typhlosion use flame wheel!" She yelled as it instantly enveloped itself in flames and shot itself towards Buizel, closing a distance of a couple hundred feet in seconds.

Ash was shocked at the raw power that Typhlosion had and grit his teeth. Buizel had been sent flying back towards him and was struggling to get back to its feet. Ash knew that neither pokemon could take many more hits. Even though Typhlosion had so much energy in it, it more than likely its blaze ability activating. Ash knew he needed a new strategy beyond Aqua Jetting, Typhlosion was just too fast for it, what he needed was range,

"Buizel, use water gun and follow it up with a sonic boom!" Ash yelled, knowing the winner of the battle would be crowned in the next couple of minutes.

Buizel did exactly as it was ordered and shot a powerful water gun attack and followed it up with a sonic boom attack. Both it and Ash were surprised to see Typhlosion dodge both of the attacks, with plenty of room to spare between it and the explosions that followed up from the powerful moves. Ash grit his teeth yet again. He wasn't sure what to do. Buizel was nowhere near as fast as Typhlosion, and it could easily dodge both of Buizel's special attacks. Ash knew the only thing left that he could do, the ultimate risk.

"Buizel, use aqua jet!" Ash shouted out.

Buizel barked back in acknowledgement and shot towards Typhlosion in a powerful stream of water, knowing what Ash was doing.

"Typhlosion, flame wheel let's go! Dawn yelled and the two pokemon shot towards each other.

Ash clenched his fist, he was right about what Dawn was going to do. The only thing he could do now, was just hope that Buizel could deal more damage to Typhlosion than Typhlosion could do to it. Ash stared as both pokemon closed the distance, feeling as if it had taken minutes for them to hit each other. They both collided, hitting each others sides. Buizel got out its stream and took a kneeling position, as did Typhlosion. Ash knew that this was it, and was silently hoping that Buizel had gotten the final blow.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Buizel collapsed to the ground with swirls for eyes. Buizel had fainted.

Professor Oak ran through the barrier once more and ran up to Buizel ad called the verdict that Ash already knew.

Ash let out a sigh, knowing that the battle was over, but was still happy with the way that it had turned out. He ran over to Buizel, who already trying to get back up with the help of the Professor.

"You did great Buizel, I'm so proud of you." Ash said genuinely as he hugged the otter. As he let go of Buizel though, he see trace tears in its eyes, as if it were apologizing for not being good enough.

"Hey, don't go thinking like that buddy." Ash said trying to cheer it up. "You were beyond great in that battle. I couldn't be any more proud of you buddy, I want you to know that." He said wiping the tears off out of Buizel's eyes. "Hey, I've got a surprise for both you and Sceptile. I know that you'll absolutely love it." Ash said helping up the sea weasel. "First though, let's go congratulate Dawn and Typhlosion, whaddya' say?" Ash asked getting a silent nod from it.

* * *

One congratulation later

After the riot of praise and hugs towards Dawn and Typhlosion from the gang and all of the pokemon, and the severe beating that Ash received from Iris for beating her, Ash managed to pull aside Buizel and Sceptile for their surprise.

"Okay, well for the first part of the surprise, I want to apologize to you two." Ash started getting confused glances from the two pokemon. "I want to apologize for leaving you guys here for so long." Ash said tearing up as both Buizel and Sceptile ran see if he was okay, but Ash raised his hand signaling them to stop their approach. "I'm sorry that I left you guys here for years. I left you on my own selfish terms, not even caring to see if you guys were happy here or not. I know both of you guys love battling and well, you don't have much of that here do you?" Ash asked as both pokemon, getting saddened nods from both of them. "So to make it up to both of you, I'm going to take you on our new journey to the Kalos Region!" Ash exclaimed getting shocked looks from both of the pokemon. Ash was kind of worried, because all they were doing was staring at him with open mouths, but a moment later, he was reassured with their feelings after they tackled him to the ground and were hugging him with loud and happy coos. Ash knew, that they were truly happy now.

"Okay guys, I get you're excited!" Ash laughed out trying to stop the dog pile on him. "I need to tell you the last of the stuff too!" After a few more seconds of fierce hugging, Buizel and Sceptile got off of him and backed up a couple of feet to hear the last of the news. "Okay, so the plan is that we're leaving tonight for the Kalos Region. It's going to be me, you guys and Pikachu, and Dawn and her Pokemon. Iris and Cilan are going their own paths so they won't be traveling with us." Ash said getting nods from the sparkly eyed pokemon."We're going to beat all eight gyms there, and finally win the pokemon league!" He shouted out getting excited cries from the sea weasel and raptor. "Okay, I've got to head home pack my gear for the trip. Dawn and I will be back in a couple of hours, so say bye to everyone you want to before we go, got it?" Ash asked getting fierce nods from the two. "Awesome. Now you guys go do that and we'll be right back, okay?" Ash asked finally getting the same response. "Great, I'll see you guys later. I'm going to go catch up with the others." The two pokemon darted off in different directions, both excited for the adventures they were soon to experience. Ash smiled, still kneeling in his original spot. He got up and walked back to the main complex to meet up with the gang.

**Hey guys, Treecko Man here. I want to start this mini blog off here with an apology. Not one like last time, but one that's genuinely from my heart. I've been putting this story off for a long time now. It's been longer than a month since I last posted, and my work has only resulted in an additional 1 small chapter of 5k words. Throughout May I had things like prom, my birthday, Heartbreaks, finals, AP exams, and literally 1 wrong math question away from having to take summer school. After all of that though, I've work next to nowhere on this story, and it sickens me. Everyday I would jump on my desktop and play videogames and not even bat an eye at my stories. Well a few people messaged me personally and after hearing how much they wanted the next chapter, I worked my ass off to get it done. I'm sorry for my lack of posting and how short each update had been. I'm making it a goal for myself to play less video games and start writing more. I want you guys to be happy to see regular updates and look forward to each chapter being both long and exciting. This was my first battle scene I've ever written so I hope it's good. Please leave a review telling me if I did or not, all compliments and criticisms are taken with enthusiasm. I wanted to combine it with the next chapter but with my lack of posting, I can't accept it. I swear to you guys I'll start working harder on it with a firey passion. You can look forward to the next chapter coming out soon. And this time I mean it. Treecko Man, signing off.**


	4. Chapter 4: Goodbye friends, hello Kalos

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokemon but I REALLY wish I could, because yeah. It would be awesome. I do not own any of the characters, I do however, own my own version of this Pokemon fanfiction and its characters. It is mine and it is my squishy.

Pokemon: To Kalos and Beyond

Chapter Four: Goodbye friends, hello Kalos

Ash began walking over to his friends who were still crowded around Dawn and her newly evolved Typhlosion. He was trying to shake off all of the adrenaline that was still in him, but after the battle they had just had, it'd be a while before it'd go away. He took a long look at his two friends Cilan and Iris. This was the last time they would see each other for what would probably be months, possibly even years. Everyone was headed off to different sides of the planet, so yeah it'd probably be years.

"Hey now just because you didn't win the battle doesn't mean you get to pout," Iris taunted to Ash as he came back from his zoned out state.

"Well Iris, just to let you know I wasn't sad because I lost, it's because this is the last time we're going to see each other for a long time," Ash said as he brought down the cheerful mood.

"It's not like we're going to stop being friends just because we're far apart," Cilan said gaining everyone's attention. "I mean Ash, you haven't stopped being friends with Misty just because you've gone on other journeys right?"

"Well no of course not," Ash replied. "I know we're still going to be friends Cilan, it's just…"

"Well then be happy that we're still friends," Cilan butted in. "That someday, we're going to meet up again, so smile about that day and for when it comes. Okay?"

Ash smiled at Cilan's words. He was going to miss his talks the most of all.

"Thanks Cilan," Ash replied with a shy smile.

"It's no problem Ash," Cilan replied as he returned Pansage to its pokeball. "Now I want you guys to promise me that you won't get into any trouble when I'm gone," Cilan said pointing at Ash and Dawn.

"Hey it's Iris's fault half the time and you know it!" Ash wailed as Dawn sighed with a giggle.

"Ketchum I oughta…" Iris started as she began to angrily walk towards him.

"Now now I don't think that I have the time to bandage Ash, my train leaves in…" Cilan paused looking at his watch as his face went pale. "...15 minutes! Oh crap, Ash, Iris, Dawn it's been great traveling with you but I've gotta go!"

"C'mon Cilan," Dawn started, "quick hug before you go?"

Tears from Cilan's eyes as he ran over to the group and huddled then in for one last hug. "I'm gonna miss you guys so much," He cried. Quickly recovering himself, he waved the gang goodbye as he started frantically running towards the train station.

"Well," Ash started "That leaves just you Iris. when are you and Gary leaving?"

"Whenever Gary shows up here." Iris said. "Our boat to the Orange Islands doesn't leave until later tonight but he was going to take me to lunch at some fancy cafe and…"

**BEEP BEEP **

"And there he is!" Iris squealed as she turned around to see Gary in his own car just beyond the fencing. "Ash, Dawn, it's been so much fun traveling with you guys. I'm never going to forget anything we did," She said with tears in her eyes.

"Hey," Ash spoke trying to be stern "you promised me you wouldn't cry Iris." he finished still teary from Cilan's speedy departure.

Iris ran up towards Ash who was fully expected to lose a couple teeth over what he had just said, but was surprised to see that she was hugging him.

"I swear if you tell anybody I did this I'll-"

"Clock me in the face?" Ash said trying to finish her sentence.

"You know me so well!" Iris yelled getting more teary as she eased up on her hug with Ash. Iris walked over to Dawn and proceeded to make the same threats with the same teary expressions. "And you can't even imagine how nice it was to actually have some girl time these past few weeks. Dawn, I think I'll miss you more than anyone else," She said as Ash deadpanned with a chuckle.

"I'm gonna miss you too Iris." Dawn said with the same teary expression as Iris. "Just make sure to fill me in about you and Gary the next time we meet." She joked trying to lighten the mood.

Iris eased her grip on Dawn and backed off, her face slightly red, but smiling none-the-less. "I'll see you guys later then." She said walking backwards waving to her friends for the last time in what would probably be a few year split. Ash and Dawn waved back to her as she got into the car with Gary and sped off towards wherever it was they were going.

"So," Ash spoke breaking the silence between him and Dawn, "Shall we gather our Pokemon and get ready to head to the airport?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." Dawn replied, still saddened by the fact that two of her friends were now gone on their own adventures.

Ash and Dawn looked over to where their pokemon were lounging at. Pikachu and Buneary were once again hanging out underneath their small apricorn tree having what seemed to be a conversation about making babies, because Ash certainly didn't remember Pikachu's face being red. Ash gazed over to Sceptile who was giving a Blaziken a hug. Ash was actually taken back by this. The only reason Ash could think of his Sceptile giving another Pokemon, let alone another living thing a hug would be if Sceptile really respected that thing, which meant to Ash that the Blaziken was most likely Sceptile's best sparring partner. Buizel on the other hand wasn't saying goodbye to anybody, he was just looking at his reflection in a pond with Piplup standing beside him. Ash sighed, realizing that Buizel really hadn't been doing anything the past few years that Ash had left him here. Well, hopefully that would change after they reached the Kalos region.

"Pikachu! Buizel! Sceptile! C'mon we're heading out!" Ash yelled out making Dawn jump from just how loud he was. The three all turned their gazes at the sound of their names being called. Pikachu and Buneary both got up and started making their way over to their trainers. Buizel slowly got up and started waddling over with a determined look on its face while Sceptile finished up its goodbye with the Blaziken.

"Okay," Ash started to say as his pokemon finally made their way over to him "I'm going to need to get your guys' pokeballs from Professor Oak and then I think we'll be ready to go!" He exclaimed as hype was starting to overflow from him. "The only other thing I think we'll need is spare food and clothes." He would have included money on the list as well if he wasn't already so financially well off. Defeating Gyms in five regions along with making it far in the league battles certainly did pay well. If he had to guess he probably had 40,000 dollars in his account. Pretty good for a guy his age. Ash motioned for his pokemon to follow him into the Professor's lab as Dawn was finishing gathering up all of her pokemon. As they walked into the lab, they were greeted with a blast of cold air. Sceptile was visibly shaken by it, Ash figured it was simply because he was a grass type.

"Hey Professor?!" Ash yelled out trying to find him. After a moment of silence, Ash and his pokemon began to look around the lab for him. After a minute Buizel cried out, pointing to a chair where the Professor had apparently fallen asleep in. Ash chuckled as he walked over. "We finish the fight not five minutes ago and you've already managed to fall asleep?" Ash asked as he walked towards the sleeping man.

"Merely thinking with my eyes shut." The professor responded as he spun around to face Ash and his pokemon. "Ahh great match that was Buizel, you should feel proud of yourself you know." The professor said as he gently pet Buizel's head getting a grateful coo as a reward.

"I was just coming in to say that Dawn and I are going home to pick up some last minute gear before we head to the airport." Ash said as he pulled up a chair and sat down infront of Oak, with his pokemon joining him at his side. "And to thank you for reffing our little free for all out there."

"Ahh no trouble at all. I quite like spectating your battles. There's certainly no shortage of excitement in them." He spoke as he turned and picked up a mug of coffee and took a sip.

Ash couldn't help but chuckle the black mustache at the bottom of the mug. It honestly would have fit the professor if he had that style of mustache though. Ash made a mental note to bring that up later.

"Oh, and I almost forgot." Ash said as he turned to face his pokemon "I need their pokeballs as well."

"So you decided to take them along with you?" Oak questioned as he got up to go get their pokeballs.

"Yeah, I think that they deserve it after being cooped up here for so long. Besides, maybe if I start my journey with them on my team I might even have a shot at winning the Kalos League." Ash said as he got up and followed the professor.

After walking down some of the halls, they had all reached the depository section of the building where all of the pokeballs were stored at. Once Oak had punched in the password, opened the vault, and collected the pokeballs which he gave to Ash right away, they proceeded back to the outside portion of the ranch.

"Hey Dawn you ready to go?!" Ash yelled out to her as she returned her pokemon to their respective balls.

"Coming!"

"Say Ash," Oak spoke as Ash turned to face him with a questioning glance. "before you two head out I have something to give to you." He said as he pulled out a large handful of pokeballs.

"Oh, no that's fine professor, I don't think I'll need tha-"

"Ash," Oak cut him off as Dawn and Piplup finished running back over to them "I talked to Goodshow about your situation." Oak finished as Ash's eyes began to grow.

"You mean-"

"You now have the ability to travel with ten pokemon now." Oak finished as Dawn stared back at Ash, who looked like he had just won a new car.

"I c-can?" Ash stuttered, still unsure if he had heard the professor correctly.

"Ash that's amazing!" Dawn excitedly yelled as she wrapped her arm around him.

Ash looked down at the large amount of pokeballs in his hand. 10 of them now. He could travel with ten pokemon now. He didn't have to worry about not being able to do his journey the way he wanted. He didn't have to worry about Buizel and Sceptile anymore. Things were...he couldn't even think straight anymore. And he must have been out of it because he started noticing a hand waving in front of his face.

"Earth to Ash?" Dawn whinned as he broke out of his trance.

"Oh, sorry I'm still-" Ash paused as he looked back to the excited faces on his pokemon "still processing this."

"Also one more thing," Oak started as he pulled a black belt seemingly from out of nowhere. "here's a new pokebelt that is able to hold your ten pokeballs." He handed it over to Ash who took it with another wide grin.

Inspecting the belt, he noticed how strong it felt and had to have been made of leather. There was a small, golden buckle in the front with a pokeball on it with a few vines and other fancy decor behind it. On the sides of the belt were ten suction cup like holders that stretched all the way around his waist. Ash took off his belt (hoping his pants wouldn't fall off) and noticed just how worn his belt really was. It was torn and wrinkled all over, had many charred spots and it even looked like mold was growing on part of it. Tossing his old belt aside, Ash looped his new belt on, and couldn't help but laugh at how, powerful, he felt.

Ash looked back over to Oak and gave him a heartfelt hug. "I really didn't think you could manage this so quickly," Ash laughed trying to hold back tears of joy.

"You should have more faith in me my boy," Oak laughed as he pulled away from Ash. "Just make sure you win the Kalos league for me."

"This time I will," Ash said as he returned Sceptile and Buizel to their pokeballs and Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder.

"Now you two get going. You've got a plane to catch and a journey to start," he laughed as he started to walk them towards the door.

"Can you make sure the others are well taken care of?" Ash asked as they reached the front door of the building.

"You do know who you're talking to right?" Oak laughed as they walked outside.

Ash smiled and gave Oak another quick hug before breaking apart. Both he and Dawn waved goodbye as they started headed back to Pallet Town. During the half hour that walk that it took to get back, Ash and Dawn decided that it'd probably be a good idea to stock up on some gear before they left. They had actually started a small shopping list once they walked inside Pallet Town's only department store.

Some new clothes would be in order since most of the clothes they had were pretty beat up. New camping equipment would be needed and since Cilan was gone, it was probably a good idea to grab a skillet and a recipe book. They decided against restocking on medicine because neither could remember what limit on the planes was. Ash thought about buying a couple ultra balls to help him capture stronger pokemon, but decided against it when he saw the price tag on them was 1,200 dollars. Finally the last thing on their list was to grab new backpacks since they were both well overdue for an upgrade.

After about an hour they were finally done shopping. Ash had gotten a new black t-shirt, a blue, long sleeved jacket with white stripes going down the arms, a new pair of blue jeans, a new red hat with half a pokeball on it, and finally (because he knew his mother would ask) underwear. As Ash met up with Dawn at the register, he noticed that Dawn had gotten another pair of her usual outfit. Same t-shirt, same top, same skirt, and (although he didn't want to admit knowing it) the same underwear. After they paid for their new gear, they made their way back to Ash's house to say goodbye to Delia and grab their tickets.

"Hey mom?" Ash yelled as he opened the front door of his house.

No answer.

"Mom?" He yelled again.

"Mrs. Ketchum?" Dawn called out still getting no reply.

"I guess she's not home," Ash groaned as he walked into the kitchen and set his gear on the ground.

"She left a note this morning saying she was going out to do some shopping, but that was before noon," Dawn listed as she thought about that morning.

"Well it's almost three right now," Ash sighed as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "I guess I can't say goodbye to her in person."

"What did I hear about saying goodbye?" Delia asked as she walked through the front door.

His mother's sense of timing was impeccable as always.

"I was saying that I might not get to say goodbye to you before we head out to the airport for Kalos," Ash said as he screwed the cap back on his water.

"You wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to your mom though would you?" She laughed as she brought in armloads of groceries. "Boy, you are more like your father every time I see you. You're here for one day and then you're out the door for adventure the next."

"Gotta keep up my image," Ash chuckled as he helped her unload some of the groceries.

"Dawn hun, would you mind helping me unload these and I'll drive you both to the airport," Delia asked with Dawn nodding in response with Piplup and Pikachu hopping off and helping out in their own ways too.

After a few minutes of silent organizing, Ash and Dawn had packed up the last of their gear, and got them and their pokemon into Delia's van. The trip back to the Veridian Airport was just as long and exciting as the one before had. Only this time, instead of Ash meeting his old pokemon, he was meeting another new adventure.

* * *

It took them a little bit more than an hour to get to the airport. They'd all been mostly quiet the entire time, keeping up with just mild chit chat. Delia was clearly sad again that Ash was leaving, but all Ash could think about was what the Kalos region was going to be like traveling with Dawn. Just him and Dawn… awesome.

"I'll miss you so much sweetie," Ash nodded and waved his mother off. He'd never really been the best with saying goodbye to his mom. It felt so weird leaving her every time. "And here are your tickets too," Delia passed the tickets back to Ash, but Dawn grabbed them first and stuffed them in her bag.

"I'll see you later mom," Ash waved as he got out of the van. "Wish me luck in the new league."

"And me in the contest circuit!" Dawn chirped as she joined Ash on the sidewalk.

"I know you'll both do great," She smiled and waved. "Be safe Ash."

"I will."

And with that Delia drove off leaving just Ash and Dawn. They quickly recalled their starters, with pikachu putting up a much bigger fight about it than piplup did, leaving Ash more beaten than Dawn was. They entered the airport and proceded drop off their pokemon, and headed to their terminal. Their flight wasn't to leave for another half hour so they both had time to kill. Dawn went to doodling in her contest journal while Ash was thinking looking up some of the gym leaders in Kalos league on his phone. After they got on their connecting flight in Hoenn, their plane was landing in the capital of Kalos, Lumiose City. There was conveniently a gym leader there by the name of Clement and he was an electric gym leader. Odd thing was the guy looked like he was the same thing as Ash. Sure he'd battled younger leaders like Sabrina, but he always found it odd when other people his age were gym leaders. The other thing Ash noticed was Clemont's placement in the circuit. He was the fifth. Although Clemont was technically the fifth gym in the circuit, Ash figured he could start off there and probably take care of him with just pikachu and sceptile.

Time flew by and their flight finally landed. They boarded their plane and found their seats near the back of the plane. Dawn got the window seat again, which Ash was fine with, he didn't really mind. He had a lot to think about.

* * *

The hours passed and they finally landed in the Rustboro International Airport. It had taken six hours to get there, but it was finally over. Their next flight wasn't going to land for another three hours, so they both went back to killing time. They got their pokemon thanks to Hoenn having relatively loose airport security. Heck, Ash had even seen a guy with a pistol on his hip. They both released their starters but decided it'd be a better idea to keep the rest of their pokemon in their balls. Dawn went back to her notebook and piplup helped her, but Ash was having a hard time figuring out what to do. He'd already looked at all the gym leaders, and what their gyms were all about. And he still had an hour and a half to kill. He got up and told Dawn he was just going to get something to eat at the bar down at the other end of the complex.

"What'll it be?"

Ash looked up at the bartender, thinking about what he wanted. He was old enough to get alcohol, but he wasn't quite feeling it.

"Ehh...just a cola," The bartender nodded, reached for the pump to his left and started pouring Ash's drink. He placed the drink in front of Ash and he quickly downed it. Pikachu sighed a bit and Ash just waved him off with a laugh.

"What'll it be?"

"Whisky please."

Ash looked to his left at the person who just sat next to him. He had spiky, black hair, oddly like his own. But what really stuck out to him, was what was on his shoulder. It was a shiny treecko.

"Hey, is your treecko-"

"Yes, it's a long story," The guy answered Ash in a fairly rude tone, which was instantly reprimanded when the treecko smacked the back of his head.

"Oh-I'm sorry for bothering y-"

"It's not a problem," Ash was surprised when the treecko was the one who was speaking. "We've just had a really long day," It was then Ash noticed the collar on its neck and figured it was probably one of those new talking collars Devon was mass producing.

The bartender came back with the guy's drink and he downed it in one gulp. "That and I get that question a lot." The guy turned and faced Ash, extending his hand. "Reid York. How's it goin?"

"Ash Ketchum. And it's been a long day too." Ash spoke as he shook his hand.

Instantly, Reid's eyes widened and had a very serious look. He studied Ash over, looking at his hair, clothes, and then finally stopped at the pikachu on his shoulders. "Oh god you're Ash Ketchum." Ash chuckled lightly.

It wasn't often that he recognized in public, but in the Hoenn region, that was a whole other story. He was basically an idol here, for whatever reason that might have been. He didn't even really do anything that important here aside from getting into the top eight in the league, and he'd done much better in the Sinnoh league and he was basically a shadow there.

"You're the guy that stopped those deoxys in LaRousse City-and stopped the original Team Aqua and Magma."

Oh...yeah that happened too. Wait, the original? "What do you mean the original Team Aqua and Magma?"

"This is...wow you're like a celebrity. What are you doing here?"

"I'm connecting on a flight to Kalos. Now what did you mean the original Team Aqua and Magma?"

"Oh, well, they resurfaced recently and are doing more damage than before. Lot's of skirmishes, things like that."

"Oh," Aqua and magma were back. Great. Just what the world needed, more crazy people. He tried to get his mind off of the subject. The first thing to replace it was battling, and he was just so conveniently looking at another trainer. "Do you know if this place has any battlefields?"

Reid thought for a moment but it was the treecko that actually spoke up. "Yeah I saw one down the hall when we were coming here. Would you want to battle? I could use the training."

Reid jumped a bit, and Ash chuckled at it, but figured he must have just been a new trainer or something.

"I don't think you want to go up against a guy like this Sia, he's been in like, 6 leagues you know."

"It'll be more fun that way."

"Pi Pika!" Pikachu rustled around on Ash's shoulders, basically begging him for this.

"I guess I'm up for it if you two are." Ash spoke and Reid seemed a bit intimidated by it, but after the the treecko apparently named Sia started pulling at his hair, Reid gave in.

"Alright let's do it then." Reid pulled out a ten dollar bill, or whatever the equivalent in hoenn was, and sat it on the bar. Ash forgot what the equivalent of ten was here in Hoenn, so he just dropped a fifty Kanto bill and left. It wasn't until a second after he had gotten off his stool that he noticed that Reid's right leg had a prosthetic from his knee down. It was the kind that had a cup around the stump and had a like a question mark shaped rod sticking out of it. Ash winced at the thought of losing one of his limbs. Must really suck to not have a leg.

They kept walking for a minute until the reached a place that had a sign stating that the room ahead was specifically for trainer battles only. They walked inside and saw that there was nobody in the room beside them.

"Sweet all to ourselves!" Sia shouted as he hopped down from Reid's shoulder. "So are you going to be using your pikachu?"

"Pika pi pika!" Pikachu shouted in excitement as he jumped down from Ash's shoulder.

"Uhh," It wasn't that Ash thought that Sia was weak, but Pikachu was so much more experienced that it would probably end badly for the little gecko. And Ash could tell Reid was thinking the same thing. "I think why don't I use my sceptile. He's still really strong, but they're in the same family tree right?"

Reid was giving him an awkward laugh as reassurance. All of Ash's pokemon were years more experienced than the treecko, and could probably one hit it. At least with Sceptile, Reid could keep the typing on equal grounds, and Sceptile would probably more likely hold back too.

Sia seemed just as fine with that idea, but Pikachu was definitely giving him the stink eye for it. They all went to separate sides of the field and grabbed a limiter off of the rack that given for their use. Ash vaguely remembered that Hoenn liked using limiters because it helped to reduce damage done to buildings because it only let pokemon release a certain amount of power. Actually now that Ash thought about it, they really would be playing on fair terms powerwise. Huh, maybe he should have used Pikachu.

Ash released Sceptile from his ball, gave him a brief description on what a limiter was going to do to him, and put it on. Sceptile winced from how much energy the collar was sucking out of him, but after a minute, he got onto the field looking ready as ever.

"Go a bit easy on them okay Sceptile?"

He just nodded and they turned to face Reid and Sia on the other side of the field. They were in their ready stance and looked like they were actually going to put up a decent fight.

"You guys ready?" Ash yelled down the field.

"Ready as I'll ever be!" Reid yelled from down the room.

"Start on my mark," Ash yelled and Reid gave a nod back. "..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Go!"

"Sia quick attack!" Sia lept forward, turning into a blur and reappearing next to Sceptile where he smashed into his chest, knocking Sceptile back.

"Sceptile counter back with your own quick attack!" Sceptile lept up, but tripped on himself. How much power had that limiter taken from him?!

"Sia quick! Use pound!" Sia darted forward and slammed his tail onto Sceptile's head as it was trying to get up. Sceptile feel back to the ground with a thud. Sia ran back towards Reid on his side of the field and left Ash and Sceptile to get their bearings back.

Sceptile rose with a grunt and glared down his pre evolution on the other side of the field. Him, a fully evolved Sceptile that had taken down legendaries and fought in leagues, was being beaten by a Treecko? Oh hell no. A dark green aura began to envelop him and he shouted in rage. Sceptile darted forward, arm leaves glowing a piercing neon green. He instantly appeared in front on Sia, glaring daggers into his eyes, and swung an incredibly powerful leaf blade attack. Sia flew back into the wall, and slowly collapsed. He didn't get up.

Ash just stood there, mouth hanging open, Reid mirroring him perfectly. Sceptile had just acted on impulse, and probably really hurt Sia. Why hadn't the limiters absorbed his power and more importantly, what the hell did Sceptile just do!?

"Sia! Oh god are you okay!?" Reid rushed to his side and Ash rushed over too.

Ash returned Sceptile along the way, not wanting to deal with him at the moment. Reid returned Sia before Ash could get there, and he had a disappointed look on his face.

"Hey is your Treecko okay?"

"Sia's fine. He just got the wind knocked out of him so I'm going to let him rest. And I think I'm going to head back to the pokemon center to get him checked out. Play it safe."

Ash nodded in response. Not quite too sure how to respond but with "Sorry for Sceptile doing...that. I have no idea what came over him."

"It's fine. Sia's strong, he'll walk it off in a bit," Reid stood back up and turned towards Ash. "And I think I'm going to take off. It was nice meeting you. Good luck with whatever it is you're going to do in Kalos."

"Thanks. Good luck to you and your stuff too," Reid nodded and walked out.

Ash let out a relieved sigh. Nothing bad had happened to Reid's pokemon, but that didn't make what Sceptile had done acceptable. He would have to talk that out with him. Ash left the battlefield and made his way back to his terminal. If he was lucky, maybe the plane would be waiting for him. He didn't feel like waiting anymore.

*Authors Note*

What? Thought I'd disappeared? Died in a tragic chainsaw accident? Given up on this on this story completely? (well actually that last one is kind of true…) Well no. I'm still doing To Kalos and Beyond due to how crazy popular it is. I don't know how but it's beating out Journey of Hope viewer wise and I haven't updated this damn story in months. So you know what? I thought I'd get off my butt and actually make the next chapter like I promised. By the way, high five to those of you who know who Reid is. P.S. the sister version of this will be up in Journey of Hope soon if you want to see it through Reid's eyes. I've been wanting to do this little meetup cameo for a while and it was fun to write. Anyways, thanks again for the crazy support guys, and happy holidays to all!


	5. Chapter 5: Hello Kalos and Hello Choas

Pokemon: To Kalos and Beyond

Chapter Five: Hello Kalos and Hello Chaos

Ash and Dawn had boarded the plane to Lumiose not long after Ash had finished his battle with Reid. Ash hadn't said anything about it to Dawn though, and just tried to play it off that he'd been over at the arcade. Granted that it was a horrible excuse since Ash was never one for video games, but Dawn bought it none-the-less. Pikachu, Sceptile, and Buizel had to be turned back to airport security, which Pikachu certainly pushed back as much as possible. The call went out for boarding, but Ash and Dawn ended up boarding last because Dawn was trying to finalize a contest idea.

"Hey Ash?"

"Yes you can have the window seat."

"Thanks!"

That was basically all that was said there. Their seats were near the back again, which was a pain this time because everybody was trying to throw their stuff in the overhead compartments. Needless to say, twenty minutes later they were finally in their seats. Dawn was back in her sketchbook and Ash was looking at more descriptions on the Kalos Gym leaders. This time in particular he was looking at Clemont. Since they were landing in Lumiose, Clemont was the first up. Even though he was the fifth gym in the gym circuit, Ash could probably take him out with Pikachu and Sceptile. He might even use Buizel to get him back up to par. Noticing right then that the rules for the gym were a three on three, Ash decided he'd let Buizel have at it. He'd trained against Pikachu and won a good amount of times so he was probably good at tanking electricity anyways.

"Earth to Ash?"

Ash looked over to Dawn, who was pouting at him for some reason. Had he zoned out again?

"Huh?" Ash asked as he studied her pout.

"I asked what's the first thing you want to do tomorrow?"

Ash thought that over for a second. Of course it'd be the gym. That was always his priority, but then there was that talk to Sceptile he had to have. Then again he didn't really want Dawn in on this so yeah, the gym is first.

"And don't you dare say the gym."

"Wha-"

"C'mon Ash. We're just starting in a new region. Let's wait a couple days before we get down to business. Our vacation didn't go well so let's take it here instead. Lumiose has some of the best shopping in the world and not to mention fairy type pokemon are there too! I'd really like to catch one!"

She did have a solid point there. That was what he always did. The time spent at Cynthia's summer home was mainly spent dealing with the league and the whole Meloetta incident, so a small vacation might be nice. His pokemon might even enjoy it too. Some time away from their pokeballs and actually being able to stretch their legs would be good for them.

"Well, I guess if you're forcing me to take a small vacation, there are a couple of things I would actually like to check out."

"Wait, you actually _want_ to go shopping?" Dawn was looking him over like he was having his mind controled by a Hypno or something.

"Well yeah. A thought hit me not too long ago and I think getting some talker collars would be really good for my pokemon."

"Oh, well that actually sounds like a good idea. But wait, aren't talker collars like five thousand dollars each?"

"I've got a lot of money stored up. Plus it's a sound investment."

"If you say so."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ash and Dawn were both cut off as the pilot came on through the planes speakers, "We will be departing from Rustboro International Airport in a couple minutes. Please take this time to secure all your loose luggage and please pay attention to the safety instructions from the stewards in the front. We expect to reach the Lumiose International Airport in just seven hours and will be landing at around 6:00 AM. Thank you and I hope you enjoy your flight."

The speaker went quiet and for the moment, Ash's attention was on the safety instructions up front. He wasn't really listening to it, but was just using it as an excuse to pass the time before the flight actually started. Somehow it worked because a few moments later they were in the air. Pillows were soon passed out, which Ash and Dawn both eagerly took. Dawn decided she'd finish up her contest idea before she slept, which Ash was fine with. He took his pillow, laid it against his shoulder, and let sweet slumber flood over him.

* * *

"_I said get up you piece of shit!"_

_Ash groaned, holding his sides where the woman had just kicked him. Painfully, he tried his best to stand up. The fire in his body was dwarfing the fire that was currently burning the building around him. _

"_Good, now you can go throw your pokeballs out there," She pointed with the gun in her hand towards a window. Ash followed the Magma Admin's orders. With a gun pointed at Max's head, there wasn't much Ash could really do. One wrong move and his twelve year old friend would be splattered across the pavement. He dropped his belt, letting all ten pokeballs fall two stories below. The woman then motioned with his gun again for Ash to get into the center of the building again._

"_You've been such a pain for us. I hope you know this."_

"_What?" Ash snarked "I've only put a few hundred of your men here in critical condition. Not like they'll die though."_

"_I could care less about them," She laughed as she paced around Max, who was currently curled up in fear. "What I do care about though, is you did __**this**_ _to my base," She motioned all around her, the fire very clearly what she was talking about. "Years worth of research laid to waste in one siege. And from a child no less."_

"_Seems like you've underestimated me."_

"_Seems I have," The woman quickly swung her arm down, pointing the barrel of the pistol at Max's head. But Ash had been waiting for that moment. In an instant, Ash had chucked an aura blast across the room, hitting the hand of the Magma Admin, and burning it off. She let out a scream of agony as she clenched her arm that was now missing a hand. _

_Ash approached her, kicking her in the sides where she had kicked him. She fell backwards with a cry, and was dangerously close to one of the raging infernos in the room. Ash helped Max up. He had some burns on his arms, but nothing that would do permanent damage. They walked over to the Magma admin. She was still crying out in pain, but Ash knew that would quickly be over._

"_So I can give you two options," Ash started as his fists started to form aura spheres. "You tell me where I can find the red and blue orbs and I help you out of here," He grabbed her shirt, pulling her up from the ground and walking even closer to the roaring fire behind them, "Or I can use alternate methods."_

_She looked at him in a panic, not sure how take in what she was seeing._

"_Five."_

"_Whatever you are, I'm not scared of you!"_

"_Four."_

"_I-I'll never tell you!"_

"_Three," The orbs around Ash's hand grew to an incredibly bright neon blue_

"_Team Magma will hunt you down!"_

"_Two."_

"_You'll never be able to stop us alone!"_

"_One. Cover your eyes Max."_

"_Hail MagmAHHHHHH!" Ash fired his aura blasts point range, searing off both of her legs. She rolled around in pain, no longer able to walk. _

"_Come on Max. We have to go," Ash herded max towards the fire exit on the other side of room, fire now starting to engulf most of the other parts. They both climbed down the ladder and the starry sky above made the burning building look like a beacon. Ash collected his pokebelt, and the two walked to the exit of the compound. Screams of agony following them as they left._

* * *

Ash woke up with every part of him feeling like it was on fire. His eyes were burning, his hands felt like the had been slammed in a door, and he felt like he was drenched in sweat. Dammit, another aura dream. He ached up and looked around the plane and found that everybody else was still asleep, even Dawn. Thank goodness. He didn't want her to know he was still suffering from them. It'd just be another thing for her to use to try and help him. Not that her helping him was a bad thing, but Ash just liked dealing with things on his own.

"To those few who are awake right now, we are beginning our descent to Lumiose and will be landing in twenty minutes."

The pilot who was speaking over the plane's speaker was trying to be as quiet as possible, and Ash had to admit he did a good job of it. Ash figured though, since they had twenty minutes left, that it'd be a good idea to wake Dawn up. He nudged her a few times and she let out a couple groans in response. They were cute, but honestly she did need to wake up.

"Hey Dawn, wake up Dawn," He prodded her shoulder a couple more times and her eyes finally started to open.

"Huh?"

"We're about to land Dawn, get your stuff ready," Dawn just lazily nodded and fell back asleep, her head finding its way cradled into Ash's neck once again. Ash let out a sigh of defeat and reluctantly started packing her things back into her backpack. Her notepad, sketch tools, hat that fallen off her head, and a half eaten pack of cherri berry sours. All the while trying to balance her head in his shoulder.

"The things I do for you."

* * *

The plane had finally landed twenty minutes later, just like the pilot had said. Dawn was awoken from the force of the landing and embarrassingly found herself in Ash's neck once again. Ash said he hadn't minded and that she'd only been like that for a couple minutes, but it was still embarrassing that it happened at all. It was sweet of him to let her lay there like that though. And clean up her stuff apparently. Where was her hat?

Finally they both got off the plane and headed for the pokemon reclaiming line, which was incredibly long. After about forty minutes, Pikachu was let out and was kissing the ground again, and Piplup was clinging to Dawn's head letting out tears of joy. A tad bit over dramatic if you asked Ash, but to be fair he'd never been inside a pokeball so he couldn't really judge them. They proceeded to walk to the exit, ready to start the first steps in their new adventure. Just a couple days of shopping and touring were the only thing between him, and his first Kalos gym badge.

"You guys excited to finally be in a new region?" Dawn asked, clearly aimed towards Pikachu and Piplup, who both gave coos of approval.

Taking their first step out of the airport was breathtaking. There were lush forests behind the airport, and in front was the incredibly large looking city with the Lumiose tower soaring above all the other buildings. It truly was a sight to behold. They hailed a taxi, piled in, and took the ten minute drive into the city. They were dropped off at the outskirts of the city near the shopping district and Dawn got to work. She tugged Ash into a clothing store, forcing him to try on new outfits (he was happy with the one he picked out the day before, but that sure didn't stop her) before forcing him back into the changing room to try something else on. Pikachu was going in and out of the rooms with Ash, but he certainly wasn't providing any moral support.

"Ash I think this one might look better," She said as she handed him a purple jacket and gray pants to try on.

"Purple isn't really my color you know," Ash deadpanned.

"Just try them on!"

"Fiiine"

Ash grabbed the clothes and went back into the changing room. Pikachu trotted behind him and Ash closed the door behind him. He took off his jeans again, putting the new gray pair on. Even though he hated clothes shopping, at least Dawn was enjoying it. Plus he did kind of like how the gray pants looked. He opened the door and showed Dawn how he looked, adding in a little twirl for sarcastic show.

"Ooh I like those," Dawn giggled as she looked Ash over.

"Yeah, I actually like them too. I think I'm actually going to get these.

"Oh, and if you like those, then you'll love these!" She chirped as she pulled out a pair of dark gray shorts. She tossed them at him and pointed towards the changing room where Ash reluctantly drug himself back too. He closed the door behind him and started to take off his jeans. Pikachu was still sitting in the corner of the room, and was basically laughing at Ash.

"So much for being my pal," Pikachu just fell back into the piles of clothes with even louder laughs. "Keep it up and I'll make sure to put tomato berries in your food to-"

**BOOM**

An explosion boomed just outside the changing room. The sudden noise sent Ash flying back into the pile of clothes, nearly landing on Pikachu.

"The hell was that!?" Pikachu gave him a worried glance and they both creaked the changing door open. The store was a mess. The clothes were either torn to shreds or were on fire. Glass from the front window was scattered all over the wood floors. And finally, there was blood. Lot's of blood.

"Dawn!" Ash raced over to his friend who was laying on the ground. Cuts were all over her, probably even a dozen or so on her face alone. She wasn't moving either was the scary part. Ash tried to check her pulse, scared what he might find, but was relieved when he saw she was still breathing. Piplup didn't look like he was faring much better. He was bleeding in multiple places, mostly his stomach though, which had a pretty deep looking cut going across. Ash returned him to his pokeball which was in the top of Dawn's backpack. At least he could be healed later.

Ash looked around and tried to assess what was going on. Parts of the store were on fire, so that had to be dealt with. He quickly released Buizel who got right to work fighting the fires without Ash even needing to say a word. Ash looked back out the windows, and noticed something off. There was a small pack of houndour wandering the streets with two houndooms leading them. They weren't doing much, just looking around was all. That was until the started to march forward past the store, and there were more pokemon with them. Grimer, muk, seviper, drapion, even a haxorus! They all marched past the store with several explosions and other booms following their wake. Why the heck were pokemon rampaging in the city?

His question was answered almost immediately as a group of about a dozen people in solid orange suits walked past, laughing like they were at a comedy club. So that's what caused this. Another group or gang that just wanted to spread more chaos. Ash took another look back at Dawn, seeing that her wounds were still pretty bad. He looked around the store and noticed that all the fires had been put out and buizel was hobbling his way, looking for his next order. A couple of the people who were already in the store were looking around at the damage and helping some of those who were injured.

"Hey, I'm going after those guys. Somebody look after my friend over here! She's hurt pretty badly!" A woman ran over, gauze in hand, and started bandaging Dawn. She didn't say anything except motion for Ash to go. He took the hint and took Sceptile's pokeball off his belt. Ash released him off to the side. "Not much time to explain, but we're going to be taking on another gang. They've got a lot of fire and poison types so be careful and listen to my orders," Sceptile nodded and Pikachu hopped onto Ash's shoulder. They all ran out onto the streets and saw that the orange suited group was only about a block away.

Ash looked back to the store one last time. Dawn was hurt by these people. These...thugs hurt one of his best friends. What they were doing was messed up on so many levels, but he was going to make sure they wouldn't harm anybody else. They fucked with the wrong trainer.

He took of in a sprint down the street. Sceptile darted past him and buizel was charging next to his side. He could feel the air tense up as Pikachu's cheeks started to spark up. They were all just a couple dozen feet away from the group. Ash's body started to heat up, rage taking over every other feeling in his body. His eyes started to glow with a pulsating aura, and he gave his orders.

"Sceptile, Buizel, and Pikachu go deal with the rampaging pokemon! I can handle these guys!" None of them hesitated with his order. Pikachu darted through the orange suited group, Buizel soared over them with an aqua jet, and Sceptile just leapt over them. The group all turned towards Ash in surprise as he punched one of the thugs in the face, knocking him out on the spot.

"I told ya Joe was going to be the first one down!" One of the thugs laughed as Ash took a step back. "And look who the first person to challenge us is. A little young to be a hero though don't you think?"

One of the thugs started to swing at Ash, but he was prepared for it. Ash stepped out of the way and shot his hand down into the thugs spine with an audible crack echoing through the street. The thug collapsed onto the ground only to start dry heaving. The other thugs jaw's dropped and they all looked back to Ash.

He was done dealing with crap like this. Just why did people have to hurt others? Why did they have to cause chaos? Aura spheres started to form around Ash's hands and his eyes glowed neon. He was done messing around. He had to get back to his pokemon, and Dawn.

"What the-what the hell are you?!"

"I'm the guy that's too young to be a hero," Without another word he dashed forward and clocked another thug in the face sending him flying back through the glass of another department store. Two tried to tackle him from behind but Ash roundhouse kicked the stomach of one into the other. The guy he kicked coughed up blood and went down on top of his buddy. Another guy came up behind Ash, only to get a punch in the jaw. Six down, probably another six to go.

One of the guys was charging at him with a flip knife in hand. Ash shot an aura blast at his hand, sending the knife flying across the street. Ash shot another at his chest, making him stumble back and pass out. The last five circled around him. Most of them had unsure faces and one of the female thugs looked like she'd crapped her pants. Three of them had knives, but they weren't looking too confident in themselves.

"Now!"

The five of the all charged Ash at the same time. Ash shot a couple aura spheres and took down four of the thugs, but the last one jumped onto his back, pinning him down to the ground. Ash struggled to get the woman off of him, but she was pretty heavy. They were struggling for a second before she reached for something. Ash couldn't tell what it was but assumed it was a-

"AAAH!"

Knife. She jabbed it into him, sending the blade deep into his left shoulder. Ash formed an aura sphere as quick as he could and blasted it point blank into her face. She let out a scream as she stumbled backwards and started rolling, before laying motionless altogether. Ash slowly got up, the knife still in his shoulder causing horrific pain. He looked at the woman, and noticed her face had been completely seared off. She was dead.

Ash took a deep breath and let everything sink in. The pain of the knife, the people around him that were either unconscious or dead. It wasn't the first time that, well any of this had happened, but that didn't make it better. He bit into the sleeve of his jacket, and pulled the knife out as quickly as possible. It stung ten times more that Pikachu's thunderbolt attacks, but he would live. Probably. His objective now though, was to get to his pokemon.

Ash ran down the street towards the sounds of explosions. When he got to a roundabout, he saw that Pikachu was knocked out in the middle of a pile of unconscious pokemon in the middle of the road. Sceptile and Buizel were still fighting what was left of the thug's pokemon, which was the haxorus and a houndoom.

"Buizel, use waterfall on that houndoom! Sceptile use dragon pulse on that haxorus!" They both hesitated for a second, seeing that their trainer was back. Sceptile managed to go through with his order, but Buizel was hit with a dark pulse as he turned back to face his opponent. Buizel went down, along with Sceptile's opponent. It was now just Sceptile versus the houndoom. Both were beaten up pretty badly, but Sceptile was the one who looked the worst. "Sceptile, finish this with quick attack!"

Sceptile darted forward, but was outsped by the houndoom. It shot a wall of flames at Sceptile, who went down after it. Sceptile's body was charred in some places, but it didn't look like anything that was permanent. But the job was still unfinished. Ash was staring down the houndoom, aura spheres starting to form. He's never actually fought a pokemon with his aura abilities before, but it had to be about the same as fighting a human.

"Heliolisk use discharge!"

An arc of electricity soared over Ash's head and struck the houndoom. It only lasted for a couple seconds before finally going down. Ash turned and saw who it was who'd ordered the attack. A young man wearing a mechanic's uniform and a weird, lizard looking pokemon he'd never seen before. There was something about the face of the trainer that was familiar though. But Ash had priorities to think of first. He quickly returned his fainted pokemon, even Pikachu.

"Heliolisk, go make sure there aren't any other rampaging pokemon out there. Magnezone-" He pulled out two more pokeballs and tossed them out, revealing a magnezone and a manectric "go scout up ahead with Heliolisk. Manectric, go to the south side and group up with Emolga. I sent her out earlier and she hasn't come back so I'm worried," The manectric nodded and dashed off towards the other side of town. The trainer then proceeded to walk over to Ash. "Dear god you are torn up. Are you okay?! I'll call the ambulance,"

"I'm fine, honestly. Call it for the others that were hurt. Besides, you have bigger concerns with the guys back there," Ash duly laughed as he pointed out the unconscious thugs a couple blocks down the road behind them.

"Did-did you do that to them?"

Ash just nodded and the trainer looked back towards him. "Well then I, and the people of Lumiose city thank you."

"Wait," The gears started turning in Ash's head, "Are you the Lumiose gym leader?"

"The one and only."

"Do you know who these guys are then?"

"Team Flare. A terrorist group based here in Kalos. Since you don't know about them I'm assuming you're not from Kalos."

"Yeah, I'm Ash Ketchum, from the Kanto region."

"Wait," Clemont took a step back and looked at him with worshipy eyes, "You're _the _Ash Ketchem?"

Ash chuckled at the recognition, "The one and only."

People were now starting to come back out into the streets. Some of them were bystanders wondering what the heck was going on, others were victims of what had happened. Blood was dripping from some people's heads, and others still had glass lodged in them. Is really was a brutal scene to behold.

"So what will happen to those guys?"

"Jail for life, no doubt."

Out of nowhere a woman and a fat guy with a camera were up in Ash's face.

"Debby Mars with Lumiose City News. Please tell us what the heck you did back there?!"

Ash was startled by the sudden attention from the news station, but he knew it'd be inevitable. "Well my pokemon and I fought some bad guys I guess."

"No not that," She was screaming and seemed excited at the same time, "You were shooting balls of energy from your hands! What was that about? How can you do that?"

"Shouldn't you be reporting on what happened?" Clemont stepped forward with a stern look. "There was a terrorist attack not 2 minutes ago and you're reporting on some _power_ that a guy has. Have at least some compassion for the probably dozens of people that were hurt. Report on this and tell people to stay in their homes and away from the area."

The reporter had a very guilty look on her face, realizing that she was in the moral wrong.

"I'll hold a press conference later outside the Lumiose Tower okay? Ash, would you mind being there for that after you get patched up? Considering what you did back there, probably saving a bunch of lives and all."

"I guess a little more recognition wouldn't hurt," he laughed, but his mind immediately focused on his friend. "Oh crap Dawn!"

Ash took off running back to the department store, Clemont wasn't very far behind him either. He ran past the unconscious (and some probably dead) bodies, and finally ran through the front entrance. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw Dawn limping around. Most of her arms, legs, and face were wrapped in gauze, and she seemed a bit pale, but otherwise alright.

"Oh thank god you're okay!" Ash yelled as he wrapped his arms around Dawn, who returned the favor.

"Sheila here told me what happened," She stepped back and slapped him on the side of the face, leaving a red handprint on his cheek. "That's for being stupid!"

"What the hell Dawn?!"

Dawn leaned in and planted a light kiss on the side of his cheek where she'd slapped him. "That's for being brave."

Ash was frozen. His cheeks now so red that it made the slap mark nearly invisible. "Th-thanks."

* * *

"_**Breaking news. There's been a terrorist attack on the northern outskirts of Lumiose City. Team flare launched another assault this morning-"**_

It was always like this. Everybody was living in panic from Team Flare. Nobody could just live normal lives anymore. Serena poured herself another bowl of cereal as she watched the news. It was only 9:00 A.M. It was too early for stuff like this.

"_**-asualties would have been much higher had a brave trainer not intervened." **_

"Somebody actually stepped in this time huh?"

"_**A young trainer by the name of Ash Ketchum-"**_

Serena stopped listening and her mouth hung open. Ash was, here? In Kalos? It'd been what, eight years since they'd seen each other? Her eyes were glued to the television in her kitchen. A tall, scruffy, raven haired kid was beating the crap out of Team Flare members, and what the heck were those things he was shooting out of his hands?

"_**-nd to those of you who are wondering what is going on in this footage, even we don't know. All that we've been told is that there will be a press conference later tonight that will be hosted by Clemont, who will be going over what happened and ways to prevent further attacks."**_

So Ash was going to be on again tonight in a press conference? Well, at least she had something to look forward to tonight now.

"Serena! Time for your lessons!"

"Okay, give me a sec!"

She wasn't even mad that she had to do her rhyhorn racing lessons. All that mattered now was finding her old friend again.

_Author's note,_

_Finally back after a long hiatus. Sorry all, had christmas break, then finals afterwards. Why finals are after christmas break I will never know. But hey, the chapter is finally here! We're finally in Kalos! The title has meaning now! YAY. Next up, I want to thank you ALL for your support. 62 followers, 52 favs, that's stupidly high for a story this size. (just wish there were more comments to figure out what you guys like cough cough). Anyways, hope this chapter was good enough. I did my best on the action scene but I think it feels a bit choppy. Tell me whatcha think. Thanks again guys, and I'll see you in the next chapter._

_~The Treecko Man_

_P.S. If you like this story you'd love A Journey of Hope, my other story I'm writing. #ShamelessPromotion_


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